Congress is likely to hold the AICC plenary session in mid-February to complete the process of organisational polls which last month gave the party the first non-Gandhi president in over two decades in Mallikarjun Kharge. The plenary is the party’s constitutional requirement to ratify the election of the new president and put in place new bodies like the Congress working committee (CWC).
As per the report, the plenary is likely to be organised during the mandatory budget session interval of the parliament that usually happens in the second week of February. Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra will also finish by then since it is moving ahead of schedule.
The plenary, likely to be held in the national capital, will be a mega affair with keen interest among leaders and workers, as it will witness a complete revamp of party bodies like the CWC, the central election committee (CEC) and also see the appointment of key managers in charge of state affairs. Much of the general focus will be on the new team that Kharge will pick to assist him.
The big suspense remains if elections will be held to the apex body, CWC. The AICC election authority chairman Madhusudan Mistry had earlier said that 12 of 23 CWC members are elected and 11 are nominated, and elections will be held if more than 12 nominations are received. The interest in the CWC elections is keen because they have not been held since 1997 Calcutta plenary, after which the party regularly decided to take the nomination route.
However, sources revealed that, the situation may not change even this time, given that past experience has not been good. The elections are dominated by leaders with organizational clout, and winnability comes at the cost of representation for key social groups like women, SCs, STs, minorities, and also leaves out key regions.
