From Jal Khambata
NEW DELHI: Congress President Sonia Gandhi turned out to be the
first prey of the party's Central Election Authority, ordering
her to stop making changes in the party when the organisational
election process is on.
Authority chief Ram Niwas Mirdha told reporters after a day-long
meeting of the state party chiefs and Congress legislature party
leaders here on Friday that he has told the Congress President
to effect whatever changes she wants to make in the PCCs by
March 15 as the CEA will then take over.
Mirdha's directive will affect the states like Gujarat and Goa
where the leadership is considering changes in the PCCs as it
will now have to hasten up appointment of the new PCC presidents
or let the existing ones continue until fresh elections in August.
The discussions at the meeting clearly indicated the difficulty
that the party is facing in effecting the reservations,
particularly 33 per cent for women.
Mirdha also directed the PCC chiefs to submit the list of 10 to 15
members for inclusion in the Pradesh Election Authorities and
another list of three to five members for the Pradesh Scrutiny
Committees.
In her opening remarks, Sonia Gandhi stressed that the last
party elections were not conducted properly and hence she wants
the Mirdha authority to have a free hand to hold fair elections.
Mirdha was quite asserting that there will be electoral rolls
like the parliamentary and assembly elections and polling will
be held at each and every level.
Sonia Gandhi stressed a vigorous membership drive that has to go
on till May 31 to ensure maximum enrolment of women and those
from SCs, STs, OBCs and minorities who have been now given
reservation at every level in the party.
The Central Election Authority is not yet clear how it would be
fulfilling the quota of women and others as made mandatory in
the party constitution and hence the state leaders were asked to
give their suggestions. Mirdha pointed out that it would be
difficult to fulfil the quota if enough enrolment of members of
these categories is not effected.
The meeting could not come to any conclusion as Mirdha said
there were two kind of suggestions: territorial reservation or
firm reservation. The first was to let the members of the
reserved categories vote for the reserved positions in the party
and the second was to let all members vote for both reserved and
unreserved positions. There was also dispute over the modalities
to identify the particular positions for the reservation.
The PCC Presidents explained the practical difficulties in which
the party may run into in trying to provide reservations from
top to bottom.
As Maharashtra PCC President Prataprao Bhonsale explains, there
are quite a number of districts where there are hardly any women
as party members and hence he does not know how one-third
positions can be given to them. He wondered if the party would
have to think of coopting women to the committees after the
formal election. END.
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