The Congress will hold a three-day brainstorming session from May 13 in Rajasthan’s Udaipur to prepare the road map for future course of action, which will include both socio-economic agenda and organisational revamp.
Called Nav Sankalp Shivir (session for new resolve), over 400 selected leaders from across the country will be divided into different groups to debate and formulate the party position on contemporary issues. Apart from the Congress working committee members, office-bearers, MPs and promising leaders who don’t hold any position in the party will also be invited.
Party president Sonia Gandhi formed six separate committees to cover the whole gamut of issues that affect the people today. These committees will prepare background papers, which will be the basis of discussions at the session. Under Sonia’s leadership, three such brainstorming sessions have been held so far in Panchmarhi (1998), Shimla (2003) and Jaipur (2013).
These sessions provide a wide spectrum of leaders a platform to discuss social, political and economic issues in detail. Party workers from the states also get time to interact with central leaders, enhancing the levels of understanding and the sense of camaraderie. Such a session is different from regular AICC sessions where time is consumed in speeches rather than in-depth analysis and deliberations.
The six committees constituted on Monday are political, social justice & empowerment, economy, organisation, farmers & agriculture and youth & empowerment. Many leaders from the rebel G-23 group have been included in the committees but the nature of the committees clearly indicates they have lost their eminence in the party. Some outspoken rebels such as Kapil Sibal have been excluded. The attempt to include younger leaders from different regions is also clear.
The political affairs committee is headed by Mallikarjun Kharge, and Ghulam Nabi Azad is only a member in the group along with Ashok Chavan, Uttam Kumar Reddy, Shashi Tharoor, Gaurav Gogoi, Saptagiri Ulaka, Pawan Khera and Ragini Nayak. The committee on economy is headed by P. Chidambaram while members include Siddaramaiah, Anand Sharma, Sachin Pilot, Manish Tewari, Rajeev Gowda, Praniti Shinde, Gourav Vallabh and Supriya Shrinate.
The group on social justice and empowerment is headed by Salman Khurshid. The members are Meira Kumar, Digvijaya Singh, Kumari Selja, Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, Nabam Tuki, Naranbhai Rathwa, Anto Antony and K. Raju. The committee on organisation is headed by Mukul Wasnik and includes Ajay Maken, Tariq Anwar, Ramesh Chennithala, Randeep Singh Surjewala, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, Netta D’souza and Meenakshi Natarajan.
The committee on agriculture is headed by Bhupinder Singh Hooda. It includes T.S. Singhdeo, Shaktisinh Gohil, Nana Patole, Pratap Singh Bajwa, Arun Yadav, Akhilesh Prasad Singh, Geeta Kora and Ajay Kumar Lallu. The youth & empowerment committee is headed by Amrinder Singh Warrring. Members of this committee are B.V. Srinivas, Neeraj Kundan, Krishna Byre Gowda, Krishna Allavaru, Alka Lamba, Roji John, Abhishek Dutt, Karishma Thakur and Angika Dutta.
