UP Congress begins sprucing up moribund orgnisation structure

LUCKNOW: With 2019 Lok Sabha elections in sight, the Congress has intensified efforts to put in place an organisation structure up to grassroots level in all 80 parliamentary seats of Uttar Pradesh. A poor organisation structure has remained a major issue of concern for the party in the state over the years.

As step one, the party has decided to depute a team of six Congress general secretaries to tour the Lok Sabha seats under their charge and take feedback about aspiring candidates and do needful to put an organisation structure in place.

These six AICC secretaries are attached to two AICC general secretaries — Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Jyotiraditya Scindia.

Priyanka and Jyotiraditya recently held marathon rounds of discussions with partymen in Lucknow and New Delhi to take feedback and understand the state of party organisation in dif-

AFTER HER INITIAL INTERACTION WITH THE PARTYMEN IN LUCKNOW, PRIYANKA HAD FELT THE NEED FOR MAKING CHANGES IN THE PARTY ORGANISATION

ferent Lok Sabha constituencies of the state. All the six AICC secretaries are touring the Lok Sabha constituencies under their charge from February 24 and are expected to be back by March 7.

While AICC general secretaries, Sachin Naik, Zubair Khan and Bajirao Khade are attached to Priyanka and have been assigned constituencies of east Uttar Pradesh, Rana Goswami, Dhiraj Gurjar and Rohit Chaudhary are attached to Jyotiraditya Scindia and have been given responsibilities for constituencies situated in west UP.

After her initial interaction with the partymen in Lucknow, Priyanka had felt the need for making changes in the party organisation. “I am learning a lot about how to restructure the organisation and the changes needed to be made,” was her observation in Lucknow. Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee (UPCC) too on Monday last held a meeting of its state election committee to consider names of candidates for various seats. While unanimity was reached on possible candidates for many Lok Sabha seats, the state election committee passed a resolution empowering the central committees and the Congress leadership to take final decision on selection of candidates. The first list of party’s candidates is expected by March 10. UPCC president Raj Babbar, meanwhile, on Thursday convened meetings of party’s campaign committee, manifesto committee, coordination committee, election strategy and planning committee and media and public committee in Lucknow on March 3 to give a final shape to the strategy and recommendations to be made by them.