Bangalore: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s dream of revitalizing the Congress by rebuilding Indian Youth Congress (IYC) units at the grassroot level, has not been realised to the desired extent in Karnataka.
Sources in the party cited two reasons for this. One, those who guided the party youth wing seem to have failed in getting 90 per cent of the members who had enrolled two years ago, to renew their membership.
Two, in spite of the youth wing recording an increase in the number of new members vis-a-vis the membership two years ago, nearly 35 per cent of booths (each assembly segment has at least 200 booths) do not have a single member representing the party youth wing.
Observers feel that this does not augur well for the party with the Lok Sabha polls fast approaching. Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, a Youth Congress leader said that when the first ever direct election was held to the Karnataka Pradesh Youth Congress Committee (KPYCC), the membership was nearly 3.24 lakh, which has gone up marginally to 3.69 lakh including nearly 33,000 membership renewals.
“If we were to consider the total number of members, the renewal rate is abysmally low. The KPYCC did not do enough to get 90 per cent of our old members to renew their membership.
“This is not a good sign for the Youth Congress or the Congress party,” the source explained.
This would affect the party badly at the booth level. In all, the state has 50,446 polling booths and ideally, the Youth Congress should have at least 5 lakh members so that there is a 10-member committee at the booth level to oversee party work.
The latest Youth Congress membership of 3.69 lakh does not allow this. This means that nearly 35 per cent of booth committees in the state are non-functional or the party does not have its basic structure in these places.
“This does not augur well for Gandhi’s dream of converting the Congress from a mass-based party to a cadre based party,” the source explained.
According to the source, even in the Indian Youth Congress website, where one can access details of the voter list, there are many surprises. Indi constituency in Bijapur has 32 Youth Congress voters, while Sarvagna Nagar constituency in Bengaluru city, has just 17 voters.
