New Delhi, April 6
As the UPA government lurches from one crisis to another, the Congress leadership is finally focusing on the organisational health of the party with the twin objectives of boosting the sagging morale of party cadres and preparing the roadmap for the next set of Assembly polls leading to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

Although organisational problems have been mounting for months, the trigger for the present exercise was provided by the party's dismal performance in the recent Assembly elections.

AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi set the ball rolling with a two-day meeting where he reviewed the party's poll debacle in Uttar Pradesh. At the same time, Congress president Sonia Gandhi set up a three-member panel, headed by Defence Minister AK Antony, to deal with the factional war, which has erupted in its Punjab unit after the party failed to dislodge the Akali Dal government in the northern state.

The long overdue attention being being paid to party matters has predictably been welcomed by Congress workers. However, there is also a lurking fear that this could degenerate into another futile exercise if the leadership fails to follow it up with a a major overhaul of the organisational setup by fixing accountability for the party's poor showing in the recently-concluded elections.

Congress leaders admit that since the UPA government is constantly battling some crisis or the other, the leadership has not been able to address the mounting organisational ills. Demoralised party cadres are looking to Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi to stem this rot in the party at the earliest as they will soon have to begin preparations for another set of assembly polls in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh later this year which will be followed by polls in the crucial states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Delhi by the end of 2013. Six months later, the country will be headed into its next General Election.

Given the this line-up, it is imperative that the exercise kickstarted in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab does not end up as a farce and instead leads to some far-reaching changes both in the organisation and the party's future strategies and programmes as reports from most states suggest that the party is wracked by internal squabbles and bogged down with unimaginative and uninspiring leaders.

While the Congress think-tank mulls a magic formula for the party's revival in Uttar Pradesh where it has been reduced to an also-ran, its immediate task is put its house in order in Gujarat by beefing up its party organisation and finding a strong state leader who can give some competition to BJP's charismatic chief minister Narendra Modi whose communal and development agenda has, so far, proved to be unbeatable.

Andhra Pradesh, which contributed as many as 33 MPs to the Lok Sabha in the last election, is another problem area for the Congress. The party is fast loosing political ground here as it is caught between the continuing demand for a separate state of Telengana and the Jaganmohan Reddy factor. To make matters worse, Chief Minister N Kiran Reddy and PCC chief Botsa Satyanarayana are locked in a bitter battle. The Congress was recently routed in the seven bypolls in the state and if the Congress leadership is unable to broker peace between the two warring leaders, it will not augur well for the party as it is facing a fresh set of byelections in 18 Assembly seats.

Even Rajasthan, considered the most stable Congress-ruled state, has had its share of problems as a group of legislators recently raised a banner of revolt against Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot.