Rahul Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge, and Sonia Gandhi, during the AICC (All India Congress Committee) meeting at Sabarmati Riverfront in Ahmedabad, Gujarat on April 09, 2025. During the meeting, the party signalled a shift from top-down leadership, empowering district presidents and promising sweeping organisational reforms.
| Photo Credit: Vijay Soneji
The long-overdue process of reforms in the Grand Old Party appears to have begun. Clearly sensing an aggressive demand for organisational change by Congress party workers across the country, Opposition leader in the Lok Sabha and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi announced the party wants to “empower” district presidents, “give them greater responsibilities”, and make them “the foundation of the party”.
Gandhi, addressing the All-India Congress Committee (AICC) session held in Ahmedabad on April 9, said that the Congress President, the Congress Working Committee (CWC) and senior party leaders had held several meetings about this.
An ideologically worded resolution, passed in Ahmedabad, stated: “We are committed to strengthen[ing] our organisation this year to take on and defeat the most arrogant, unjust, and oppressive forces”. The Congress is also planning to bring in more youth into the party: People who are ideologically committed, and those without any political background.
Over the past few weeks, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, Gandhi and the party’s General Secretary (Organisation) K.C. Venugopal, have met more than 400 district presidents across several States.
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There are 862 district bodies within the Congress’s party structure in the country. A highly placed party functionary informs Frontline that the party leadership is planning to bring new faces in more than 450 districts. “The criteria for the selection of the district president will be clear. Ideologically committed young people who are ready for a struggle on the streets. Caste and other criteria will also be considered, but more than that a dedication towards party and its ideology will matter the most”, said the leader.
Back to the 1970s
In his speech before AICC delegates, Kharge also indicated that “empowered” district presidents would play a major role in the party’s functioning. “We have decided that the district president will be involved in the candidate selection process in the future,” said Kharge. By the end of this year, Congress is planning to fill all the posts of district presidents.
Senior leaders from the party have welcomed this move. AICC Maharashtra in-charge Ramesh Chennithala and senior leader from Kerala said that the decision would help strengthen the party and bring back the system it had in place in the 70s. “There was a system within the Congress regarding all decisions, from selection of candidates to raising issues. District presidents used to take the lead, and State presidents used to follow up these issues with AICC. We are bringing that system back”, said Chennithala.
Preparations are afoot at the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Memorial for the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting as part of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) session in Ahmedabad on April 7, 2025.
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THE HINDU
Former Deputy Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh T.S. Singh Deo said: “The district president should also be given a free hand to select the candidates for local body elections. They should be given all responsibilities. That will help the party in future elections”.
As the BJP talks about its Hindutva ideology as being the force behind its consistent success in elections, Congress party workers also want their leadership to take a strong stand on the ideological issues.
Meanwhile, in his recent visit to Gujarat, Gandhi said that many party leaders are in “collusion” with the BJP and that “they should be removed”. Picking up on his indication, many AICC delegates supported the idea of “cleaning up the organisation.”
‘A road to justice’
Alok Mishra, Kanpur city president of Congress from Uttar Pradesh, said, “There are examples in our party where a father is the district president, and his sons are in different parties. Why are we not taking action against such leaders?”. Vijay Sharma, senior Congress leader from Jammu, who walked with Gandhi during his Bharat Jodo Yatra in 2022 from Kanyakumari to Kashmir said, “There are leaders in every State in the party who misguide the central leadership before every election. The party loses and the central leadership faces the criticism. Now this should stop”.
Apart from organisational issues, the AICC session also gave the party workers the motto “Nyay Path: Sankalpa, Samarpan, Sangharsha (A road to Justice: Resolution, Dedication, Struggle)”. Congress has been pushing the agenda of “Nyay (justice)” since 2019: Justice on the various fronts, from economic to social. During his speech in the extended CWC meeting held at Sardar Patel’s Smarak in Ahmedabad on April 8, Gandhi said: “We kept clubbingBrahmins, Muslims and Dalits together. But in the process, we ignored OBCs. This must be changed.”
Congress has been constantly raising the issue of a nationwide caste census. It was a demand in the 2024 Lok Sabha election. Gandhi repeated the demand in his speech at the AICC session and said the BJP and the RSS are running away from it. “But I assure you that we will force the government to pass the law from the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha and we will break down the wall of 50 per cent reservation”, said Gandhi.
Multiple electoral studies have shown that OBCs across the country have become a solid vote bank for the BJP; Gandhi has been trying to break into it with the demand for a caste census. AICC Ahmedabad also reiterated their stance through a resolution.
Reclaiming icons
A resolution passed in the CWC meeting underlined that Sardar Patel’s political affiliation was with the Congress. “Sardar Patel was our president. He was a Congress leader throughout his life. He and Jawaharlal Nehru laid the foundation of Independent India”, says the resolution. Congress leader Jairam Ramesh told the media, “Those who talk about Sardar Patel’s legacy should first answer questions about the situation of farmers in the country: Because Sardar Patel was undoubtedly the biggest leader of farmers of his times”.
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For three straight decades, the Congress has been out of power in Gujarat. To take on the BJP in the State, it is necessary for the Congress to reclaim all the icons of the Gujarati community. Reclaiming Sardar Patel at AICC was a first step in their strategy.
The Congress, which lost the 2014 Lok Sabha election, did not fare much better in the 2019 election. But in 2024, the Congress won 99 seats and the BJP failed to get the majority of 272 on its own. But within a year to that result, the Congress finds itself losing elections in State after State: The Haryana Assembly election, then Maharashtra and Delhi. It could win Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir because it had a strong alliance partner.
In this backdrop, bringing major reforms in the party, keeping an electoral battle in mind, was the only option. Ahmedabad’s AICC appears to have pushed the wheels of change, finally.
Source:https://frontline.thehindu.com/news/congress-party-reforms-aicc-session-rahul-gandhi-2025/article69435032.ece