Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): As part of the exercise to make Congress battle-ready for the Assembly elections this year in the state, the executive committee of Madhya Pradesh Congress was reconstituted on January 22. The new body announced by AICC organisational general secretary KC Venugopal is a jumbo body with 50 vice-presidents and 150 general secretaries. The names of 64 presidents of District Congress Committees (rural and urban) have also been announced.
However, the party has not made plans to organise a meeting of the jumbo body, state vice- president Prakash Jain told Free Press. There is no such plan now, he added. He also said that he didn’t remember when the executive committee had last met for the meeting.
In fact, the executive committee of state Congress hasn't met even once in last five years. Party leaders including the members of the newly-constituted body have said that this is an absurd situation and does not augur well for the party.
If the executive committee doesn't meet, how would the new office-bearers come to know one another and how would the leadership ensure that they work as a team. "For want of coordination and guidance from top leadership, the party leaders down the line are pursuing their own agenda. They don't know what the official line of party is. They don't know what they are supposed to say and what they aren't supposed to say," a party leader said wishing anonymity.
The party leaders feel that the Congress cannot hope to take on the massive, well-oiled and extremely resourceful party machinery of BJP with a rudderless and disparate group of office-bearers who don't have a clue as to what the leadership expects them to do. The party, they say, would do well to convene a meeting of the executive committee as soon as possible where the new office-bearers should be briefed on the party's strategy and its stand on various issues.
In contrast, the national and state executive of BJP have already met and discussed issues threadbare, they point out.
"Organisational weakness has always been the bane of the Congress. It is because of a weak organisation and rampant factionalism, with leaders blowing their own trumpets, that the Congress often fails to turn the popular resentment against the government into votes," said another leader, wishing anonymity.
