Thiruvananthapuram: Senior Congress leader and CWC member A. K. Antony will launch the party’s door-to-door membership campaign in the state on April 30. The decision was taken after the brain storming session Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi had with KPCC president M. M. Hassan and 12 DCC presidents in New Delhi on Wednesday. The high-level meeting also decided to go ahead with the organisational elections. Leaders including KPCC president and MPs and MLA will take part in their respective booth committees where membership drive will be kicked off. DCC presidents told Mr Gandhi that they are trying to form booth committees on consensus rather than through electoral process.
A DCC president told DC that Mr Gandhi urged them to work towards the empowerment of youth, women and Dalits so that the foundation of the party can be strengthened. “The meeting which lasted for more than two hours witnessed a collective session with Mr Gandhi, AICC general secretary and secretary in charge of the State, Mukul Wasnik and Dipak Babaria, respectively. Later, he had one-on-one sessions with the DCC presidents in which he asked whether there is a requirement for a new KPCC president or to go ahead with the organisational polls,” said a DCC president. Palakkad and Kottayam DCC presidents were conspicuous by their absence due to prior commitments in their constituencies. Meanwhile, Hassan and his team requested AICC’s election authority chairman Mullapally Ramachandran to remove the photo identity in the membership drive forms which he said would consider.
