Rahul bets on NSUI for 1st time votes

NEWDELHI: For almost three weeks now, at the India International Centre Annexe in the capital, top Congress leaders, from former finance minister P Chidambaram to former external affairs minister Salman Khurshid, from former rural development minister Jairam Ramesh to Lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor, from head of Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s office K Raju to younger MPs Gaurav Gogoi and Deepender Hooda, have turned into teachers.

In attendance are a group of 35 students, selected from 500 applications, attending the four-week Future of India course, organised by the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI), the Congress’ student affiliate.

The leaders are speaking on a range of themes, foreign, economic, even monetary policy; the United Progressive Alliance’s ‘rights based’ development paradigm; the agrarian crisis. The idea, explains Ruchi Gupta, joint secretary of the Congress in charge of NSUI, is to talk about “the politics of policy”.

The workshop is part of a broader mandate the NSUI is working with. In the run up to 2019, Congress president Rahul Gandhi has asked NSUI to focus on student union elections but also go beyond it to connect to the larger student population; act as a bridge with close to 150 million first time voters; systematically work on both expanding electoral strength and manage ‘perception’ around the party; and identify emerging leaders in each state, said two functionaries familiar with NSUI’s functioning.

One of them said, “The party is increasingly understanding that while student union elections are essential and we have to win, it cannot be the end goal. Many students even within public universities are not interested in union elections; and there is a large student universe outside it.”

NSUI is attempting to reach out to this constituency.

The immediate aim is to help the party’s cause in 2019.

According to Gupta: “NSUI can engage serious aspirational young people who would otherwise have gone into think-tanks and movements. It also helps build our capacity to be able to set agenda and raise issues in a substantive manner outside of ad-hoc street protests.”

But this is coupled with other attempts. On the electoral side, ever since it won the Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) election last September, the NSUI has run specific campaigns, says Gupta.