NEW DELHI : The Congress WorkingCommittee at its meeting held on 11^th December, 1999 considered the report of the AICC introspection committee headed by Mr. A. K. Antony. The Congress President, Mrs Sonia Gandhi, presided over the meeting. The following suggestions of the introspection committee were accepted by the Working committee.

1. Party Elections : Free and fair elections at higher echelons of the party hierarchy are possible only if the process commences through secret balloting by active members for constituting booth/village committees and electing block committees. Such secret balloting is required at all echelons of the election process, from the bottom to the top. Not only PROs but also DROs might be selected from outside rather than from which the state.

2. Party Structure and Candidate selection : Kept pending, as it required amendent of the constitution.

3. Announcement of selected candidates : Timing

• Announcing candidates for assembly elections at least one month in advance.

• Announcing candidates for parliament elections at least three month in advance.

4. Selection of candidates—Observers: Observers of ability and status, selected from neighbouring or other states, may be sent to assist each committee in preparing their respective panels.

When these panels come for consideration at the Pradesh level, a CWC member not belonging to the state may be deputed as the observer to select the best available candidates.

5. Disciplinary Action : To contain indiscipline at certain levels during crucial election times, the Committee recommends that senior outside observers of status be appointed for all Parliamentary/Assembly constituencies going to the polls, and be authorised to route to the central or Pradesh Disciplinary Action Committee, as the case may be, serious cases of indiscipline that appear, prime facie, to warrant such reference. Moreover, for the disciplinary process to act as a deterrent, the Disciplinary Action Committee must render its decision within, say, of the month of the conclusion of elections.

 6. The Return of Prodigal : The Committee recommends the de-linking of re-entry/entry from ticket entitlement as the general norm.

7. Campaign Materials : The Committee recommends a through review of the present system of centralizing the preparation of campaign materials, including the preparation and release of advertisement. To the extent possible funding for campaigh materials might be devolved to PCCs so that there is a substantial complement of PCC general campaign materials.

A summary of highlights of the mnifesto, especially specific proposal that have an electral bearing, should be prepared alongside the drafting of the manifesto for widespread dissemination as also to provide valuable talking points for candodates and campaigners alike.

The electronic media is rapidly overtaking the print media as the preferred medium for mass messages. Moreover, information technologymakesw it imperative that IT networks be pressed into political service.

8. Pre-election Training Camps : The Committee recommends the preparation of a manual to confront the formidable organizational and management challenge which elections represent. Well-trained teams of Congress trainers should visit every constituency to hold training camps for canvassers, potential booth and counting agents, as well as platform speakers. This presupposes, of course, prior training camps for trainers. It should be mandatory for PCCs/DCCs to organize conventions on the eve of elections at which the party ideology and the party stand on current issues are fully and correctly explained by well-versed central and state leaders. Potential candidates must attend such conventions.

 9.Media Relations : In this age of media-driven elections, there is an imperative need to have a strong Media Department at the AICC/PCC level, with official Spokeperson in all PCC/TCCs to build a network of spokemanship, using e-mail and other instruments of information technology.

10.Reaching out to Oppinion Makers : The election results reconfirm the growing alienation of the party from the educated urban middle class. The intelligentsia, by and large, does not identify with the party.

The party must attempt to enroll the imntelligentsia and make space for them in the deliberative and decision –making organs of the party. The intelligentsia must also be given a direct access to the Congress President.

 11.Reaching out to the Young : The implementation of the Panchmarhi proposals with respect to the NSUI seems to the Committee to be urgently required. The programme of work of the NSUI should be more constructive than overtly political.

As regards the Youth Congress, the Committee recommendsthat active members of the Congress below the age of 35 be constituted into general Bodies at the District/State/national levels to democratically elect their presidents and office-bearers.

The Youth Congress needs to be overtly political, assuming the primary responsbility for taking the Congress message to every nook and corner of the constituency. This is possible only if there is a Youth Congress unit in every constituency.

12. Reaching out to Women : All active women members of the party at District/State/National level should constitute themselves into general Bodies to elect their respective presidents and office-beraers.

Special efforts need to be made to enlist elected women members and chairpersons of the Panchayats and Nagarpalikas to the cause of the Mahila Congress.     

13. Reaching out to SC/ST/OBC : Alliances with Dalit parties should be weighed very carefully, the emphasis being on building up our own Dalit leadership wherever possible. The Congress needs to make a special efforts to reach out to well –educated and professionally upward mobile young SC/OBC men and women who could be nutured to leadership in the party. There is also a vast pool elected SC/OBC representatives in the panchayat andnagarpalikas who need to be recognised and promoted to higher responsibilities. Much of this also applies to the Scheduled Tribes.

14.Reacghing out to the Minorities : Reaching out to Muslims including especially Muslim women, appears to be an important requirement.

15.Combating Communal Organisation : The primary and overall duty of the Congress organisation as a whole is to combat the rising menace of communalism, as promoted by the RSS and other organs of the Sangh Parivar as well as related organisation. Note has to be taken of the army of activities built over deacdes by these organisations and the variety of educational, cultural and sports activities through which they have been spreading their tentacles. We need to have dedicated full-time workers to combat cadrebased communal organisation. The time has come to revamp and reorient the Sewa Dal to be our crade-based vanguard for combating the forces of communalism and reaction.

16.Streamlining ans Strengthening the Party ainframe : The Committee recommends that strict directives be issued for limiting the number of office-bearers and insisting that each office-bearer be assigned a specific set of responsbilities and be held accountable for performance.

Senior leaders, such as former Chief Minister and former PCC president, might be accommodated in a high-level Advisory Committee to the PCC President, the PCC executive being manned by up-coming activists. The same modael might be replicated further down the line. In larger states, with defined region, the possibility of constituting Zonal Committees between the Pcc level and the DCC level might be explored for better coordination. Similarly, it might be useful to establish Cluster Committees, comprising approximately 10 to 20 Panchayat areas (or wards in urban areas) between the Block Congress Committee and the Village/Booth level. AICC general secretaries/secretaries and other office-breaers should intensively tour the interior of states, up-copting bright young upcoming workers in neighbouring states to complement tours undertaken by AICC office-breaers.

17.Alliances and Coalitions : The Panchmarhi Declaration, particularly para 7, provides adequate flexibility for the Congress to approach the question of alliances and coalitions in a pragmatic manner, weighing the advantages and disadvantages on a case-by-case basis.

18.Political Decision-Making : The need for the Decision-making organs of the party to have wider and more in-depth inputs in the decision-making process. The inputs need to be political as much as intellectual, analytiacl as much as derived from a variety of sources. There is also need for strengthening the symbiotic relationship between the state and central leadership. There is need too for chaneeling grassroots views to and from the state/central leadership. In both PCCs and the AICC, there is need to widen the ambit of theconsultative process.

With a view to aiding the decision-making process, the committee gives itself the liberty of making the following suggestions:- 

The AICC needs to have a very strong Research and reference Department to prapare  detailed draft position papers on major issues coming before the CWC nad other decision-making fora;

The R&R Department might itself organise formal and informal interaction between the intellectual community and social activities, on the one hand, the Congress party leaders, on the other, to widen and deepen the pool of information available to Congress leaders as well as to enlighten opinion-makers in the country at large about Congress thinking on matters of contemporary concern;

PCCsmight be encouraged to establish similar R&R Departments.

Regular meetings must be organised to educate Congressmen and women at the state and grassroots levels of the Congress position on topical issues; this presupposes that AICC R&Rdepartment will make available to PCCs position papers for translation into local languages and regular dissemination to lower echelons; Disseminating the decisions and resoultions of the CWC to every echelon of the party without delay.

19. Ideology and Image : In regard to ideologicalstand of party on various issues the Panchmarhi Decleration of 6^th September, 1998 would be reconstured as the basis document. Section ‘C’ of such declaration deals with the economic policies of the party. CWC endorsed that declaration would be the guidance to economic policies to be pursued by the party.