All eyes on Rahul’s entry as AICC set to recast this week

NEW DELHI: The much-awaited revamp of the AICC is expected to be announced this week. The exercise has assumed importance as there is expectation that Mr Rahul Gandhi will formally make an entry into the party hierarchy — an event that Congressmen have been eagerly waiting for past several months.

Although Congress president Sonia Gandhi is yet to indicate whether Rahul would be appointed as a general secretary or CWC member handling important assignments, there is demand from within the partty to send a clear message of political purposefulness through the coming reshuffle. In the past exercises, Ms Gandhi had relied heavily of senior partymen and family retainers for manning critical posts in the AICC.

The reshuffle is important as the new team will have to steer the party in the coming electoral bouts in politically significant Uttar Pradesh. Although it has been winning in family estates of Amethi-Rae Bareli, the party has not been able to penetrate into areas that have become alien to it.

The reservation issue is complicating matters for the party as it threatens to widen the emotional distance between the upper castes and the Congress. The upper castes, who have deserted the BJP, have been finding new nesting ground in the BSP. Given this context, the party leadership has a tough task at hand in UP.

Senior leaders here concede that splitting UP’s party machinery into various zones and putting each zone under the control of senior leaders has not been working. Party leaders in the state are working at cross-purposes and the state unit has not been able to launch a credible campaign against the ruling Samajwadi Party.

This also points to the need of a new idea to recharge the party’s cadre in the state. Successive electoral defeats in vast tracts of the state have only added to the fatigue experienced by its cadre. There is expectation that Rahul Gandhi will be able to instil a sense of purpose in the organisation.

The new team in the AICC will have to coin a saleable theme that can arrest the anti-incumbecy disadvantage for the party in Uttaranchal and Punjab. The party’s prospects in Uttaranchal are seen bleak as reservation issue could become a major campaign theme in the upper caste-dominated state.

Hectic lobbying is on for gubernatorial assignments. While the party has decided to nominate Kerala leader Vakkom Purushothaman and RPI’s RS Gavai for postings as governors, it also has to accommodate leaders who do not find slots in the AICC.

The government has to fill the posts of 10 governors. The states that need governors immediately are: Andhra Pradesh and Bihar. The others where incumbents will retire soon include Karnataka, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Punjab, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Tripura and Uttaranchal.