Rahul Gandhi holds first post-poll review meet

NEW DELHI: After the election results, Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi quietly held his first organisational review meeting on July 17 evening.

While many Congress general secretaries are yet to meet Rahul after the poll debacle, he spent about two-and-a-half hours with an AICC team from its scheduled caste cell analysing the election results, charting out a new course identifying Dalits, tribes, minorities and the poor as Congress’ core constituency.

The meeting analysed the results and reached the conclusion that there isn’t much of an erosion in the party’s vote share among Dalits and the socially and economically weaker sections of the society.

The priority attached to this review meeting is, in fact, an indicator of Rahul Gandhi’s post-poll political positioning.

According to the leaders privy to this meeting, Rahul Gandhi seems to have decided to nurture the poor and weaker social groups to return to power.

This strateg y might work in north India as Mayawati’s BSP appears to be on the decline in Uttar Pradesh and there is no alternative to her leadership, yet.

An analysis of the vote share pattern in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Chhattisgarh clearly showed that Dalits still prefer to vote for Congress and so do the minority communities and the non-dominant tribal groups.

For instance, the non-Bhil tribes in Gujarat and non-Gond tirbes in Chhattisgarh have shown their preference for the Congress party.

Of course, BSP is still the choice of the dominant Dalit group, the Chamars, in Uttar Pradesh and in north India. But, according to party insiders, Rahul and his team strongly believe that this can change if they put in a genuine effort to create Dalit leaders all across north India.

This team of dedicated activists has been tasked with finding good candidates for all reserved constituencies in the country.

The team’s biggest challenge is to nurture a new Dalit leadership and to make Congress the vehicle for social change for the community.

Congress is anxiously awaiting the post mortem report from its senior leader AK Antony on the reasons for the party’s debacle in Parliament polls.

Many Congress leaders have already, informally, written off the report — meant for party president Sonia Gandhi’s eye only — as a mere whitewash and are desperately seeking meetings with vice-president Rahul Gandhi to put across their views on the reasons for the defeat and the way ahead.

But Rahul seems to be convinced about a dramatic course change away from the beaten path and the traditional leadership.