Comic rush

Patna, July 11: The state Youth Congress has zeroed in on two icons to strengthen its organisation — one young and the other popular among people of all ages.

The first star on its list is the All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary Rahul Gandhi. The other is cartoon.

The state Youth Congress president, Lallan Kumar, said Rahul was still the icon for the youths. He claimed that the AICC general secretary had visited Forbesganj after the firing incident on the request of the state Youth Congress. He said he would request Rahul to visit Bihar frequently and galvanise the youths towards the party after the UP elections.

“Rahul is still the leader who draws crowd, as the Forbesganj visit showed. With none of the state Congress leaders able to draw people, the state party has little choice but to rely on Rahul and hope that his charisma would work for the party,” a senior Congress leader said.

The Youth Congress has also made cartoons showing youth leaders making a beeline to the Youth Congress office to join it. “We will be using the toons in posters as we intensify our move to attract more youths,” Lallan said.

Recently, the state Youth Congress organised a meeting of youth leaders across the party line. “Most of the youth leaders have pledged to join our organisation to work on issues related to youths like election of students’ unions in universities and formation of separate commission for the youths,” Lallan said.

The NDA is making a mockery of Youth Congress’s cartoons and its efforts to woo the youths.

“If Rahul is the Pied Piper for youths then why did his party end up with just three seats in Bihar in the last Assembly polls?” asked Sanjay Singh, the state spokesperson of the JD(U).

Rahul’s poll experience in Bihar was bitter in the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections.

Singh pointed out that the so-called meeting of youths organised by the Youth Congress consisted of persons belonging to parties like NCP and Samajwadi Party that hardly have any presence in Bihar.

“The toons will become a joke on the Youth Congress and its mother organisation,” Singh added.

Significantly, a large number of youths enrolled themselves in the Youth Congress before its organisational polls. “Most of the new faces took the membership and landed in the Delhi office of the organisation with petitions for government jobs,” an AICC office-bearer said, insisting that the drive for recruiting youths did not ensure that only those committed to the organisation joined it.

The unchecked entry contributed significantly to the ruckus outside the Congress office in Bihar over distribution of tickets for the Assembly polls.