Party Polls

ORGANISATIONAL POLLS IN FULL SWING

President's Election

NEW DELHI: The election of the Congress president will be held on 9th June, if necessary, when votes will be cast by PCC delegates at their respective PCC headquarters. The counting of votes and declaration of the result will be on 12th June. The notification of the election was made on 25 May and the nominations were to be filed by 27th May and scrutiny and publication of list will be over by 3.45 pm the same day. The last day for withdrawal of nominations will be till 2.30 pm on 3rd June and publication of final list of candidates will be made by 2.45 pm. This was stated by Shri Oscar Fernandes, the Returning Officer for the election of the Congress president.

NEW DELHI: The organizational elections of the Congress party are due this year and shall be completed by May-end. These organizational elections are held every three years. The process starts at the unit (booth) level, followed by block and district level, leading to the state level and finally to elect the party president.

According to AICC secretary, Maj. Ved Prakash who shed light on this electoral process, said that Indian National Congress is world's largest democratic set-up. It has units in all the states, all the districts, all the blocks, all the wards, in all the panchayats and in every village of the country. It has large number of members and in the previous elections the party had over 5 crore primary members and over 20 lakh active members. The membership enrolment process is a continuous process and anyone wanting to become a member of the Congress party has to fill up a primary membership form and having being a primary member for more than 365 days, he can become an active member after enrolling 25 primary members. The Congress president has appointed a Central Election Authority headed by Shri Oscar Fernandes. The CEA has appointed the state-level chairmen of the State Election Authority or the Pradesh Returning Officers. In turn, they have appointed the district returning officers and at the block level, the block returning officers. In all the states, the organizational election process is presently going on smoothly and the CEA chairman is closely monitoring this process.

At the start of the election process an electoral roll is prepared with the names of all the members and if at any level there is any complaint, the district scrutiny committee and later the Pradesh scrutiny committee attends to those complaints. If the complaint is of serious nature, it can be referred to the Central Election Authority. The CEA monitors and sees that the organizational elections go as per schedule. And at this stage, at the unit level as well as at the block level the organizational elections have been completed. At the block level, election takes place for the block president and one PCC delegate from each block and six members as District Congress Committee delegates. At the district level when the elections take place, they elect the district president and district office-bearers and at the pradesh level, PCC president and PCC office-bearers are elected. Further, on the basis of 8 PCC delegates, one AICC member is elected. These elections can be held by arriving at a concensus and that also helps in galvanizing the party. Once the elections are over at the state level, the election of the Congress president is announced and if there is more than one candidate, elections are held. PCC delegates elect the president.

Once the election of the Congress president is complete, a Plenary Session is announced and in the Plenary Session, apart from deliberating various resolutions, like economic affairs, political affairs, organizational matters, external affairs, the election of the Congress Working Committee takes place. For CWC, the AICC members are the delegates and they elect 12 Working Committee members and the rest are nominated by the Congress president. Similarly, Parliamentary Board and the Central Election Committee are also elected. This completes the process. The most remarkable feature of the Congress party is the democratic process it follows strictly, in electing its office-bearers from the village to nation's level.