New Delhi, June 24
The Congress today decided to hold the party’s next plenary session in September, triggering “bids” from various leaders that their respective states be chosen to host the meet.
While Mr Satyavrat Chaturvedi, AICC general secretary in charge of Uttar Pradesh, is learnt to have suggested that the plenary session be held in UP, other AICC leaders and chief ministers are expected to pitch in with their “bids” in the coming days. Other venues under discussion include Punjab, Andhra Pradesh and Uttaranchal.
The decision on the tentative timing of the AICC meeting was taken at a meeting of party general secretaries with Congress President Sonia Gandhi when various possible dates and venues came up for discussion. The status of the ongoing organisational elections also figured at this meeting.
The general consensus was that the plenary session, which ratifies the party President’s election and elects the members of the Congress Working Committee on completion of the organisational elections, be held after the monsoon and before the Bihar elections. In view of these factors, the plenary session will most likely be held by September-end. The decision on the dates and the venue will be finalised by the CWC, which will meet after June 30 when the process of organisational elections will be formally closed, Mr Janardan Dwivedi, AICC general secretary, told reporters after the meeting.
However, even before today’s decision, AICC leaders and chief ministers have been offering to host the plenary session and the pace is expected to pick up now. While Andhra Pradesh has been pushing to host the meet after the party’s phenomenal electoral victory, a case is being made out for Uttar Pradesh on the grounds of its importance and the party’s poor presence there. Although the past few AICC plenary sessions have been held in Bangalore, Kolkata, Tirupati and Mumbai, no such meet has been held in UP for over two decades. Congress leaders recalled that an AICC plenary session was scheduled in Amethi about a decade ago but had to be called off because of bad weather.
Today’s meeting also expressed concern over the large-scale bogus membership which had gone unchecked despite best efforts to end the ongoing practice. In this connection, a reference was made to the recent by-elections in Allahabad where the party polled a paltry 660 votes although its records show that it has a substantial membership there. It was suggested that one way of dealing with the problem would be to simplify membership procedures, which are presently far too cumbersome.
The meeting also decided that a lot of senior and promising leaders, who had been excluded from the pradesh committees and the AICC, be accommodated subsequently in other party committees. This decision follows a large number of such complaints which the AICC has been receiving over the past weeks.Congress leaders explained that had happened because the party had decided to reserve 50 per cent of the seats for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, minorities, the Backward Classes and women in the party organisation.
