Term limits, new departments: Key decisions by Congress during 3-day Chintan Shivir

(This story originally appeared in on May 15, 2022)

NEW DELHI: The Congress on Sunday adopted the ‘Udaipur Nav Sankalp Declaration’, a roadmap for wide-ranging reforms in the party organisation to make it battle-ready for the next round of assembly and Lok Sabha polls.

Sunday was the last day of the three-day Chintan Shivir being held in Udaipur, after a string of electoral defeats and dissent in the party for the past many years.

The new roadmap was adopted by the Congress Working Committee (CWC), the party’s highest decision-making body, after the final round of deliberations on key organisational, political, economic, agricultural, social justice and youth-related issues.

The CWC met earlier in the day on the sidelines of the shivir to approve the decisions that were based on reports submitted by six dedicated panels — formed by party president Sonia Gandhi to examine all issues in detail, including ideology, economic policy and social engineering.

Addressing the session on the last day of the shivir, Rahul Gandhi said: “We have to accept that the Congress’ connection with the people has been broken … Our fight is for ideology. We have to go to the people and sit with them, the connection the party had with people has to be re-established.”

Here are the key decisions taken in the brainstorming session:

* The party has adopted the “one-family, one ticket” formula with the rider that another family member seeking to contest elections should have worked in the party in an exemplary manner for at least five years. The formula paves the way for leaders like Priyanka Gandhi and others to contest polls as they have worked in party positions since 2019.

* The Congress will enforce ‘1 person, 1 post’ rule.

* No person will hold one party position for more than five years. Once the tenure is over, the office bearers will have to resign from their post. This will be followed by a cooling period of three years in case the leader returns to the same post.

* The party has also approved 50% representation to SCs, STs, OBCs and minorities at all levels of the organisation, as part of its social engineering efforts to win the confidence of the weaker and oppressed sections of society.

* It will set aside 50% of party positions for those less than 50 years of age in party committees at every level of the Congress organisation.

* The party also said it will grant legal guarantee to MSP for farmers and make unemployment a major issue in upcoming elections.

* The Congress will set up an ‘assessment wing’ to monitor the performance of all office bearers.

* It will also form a ‘public insight department’ to ascertain views of the people and carry out surveys for getting battle ready for elections.

* It will also set up an integrated communications department as well as a national training department.

* All vacant posts to be filled in 90-120 days.

* The Congress president will set up an advisory group from among CWC members to deliberate on political challenges.

In her concluding address, Congress president Sonia Gandhi said the Congress will launch a ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ from Kanyakumari to Kashmir beginning on Mahatma Gandhi Jayanti on October 2. The party will also launch the second phase of its ‘Jan Jagran Yatra’ at the district level from June 15.

(With inputs from agencies)