In an effort to speed up the internal polls to meet the Election Commission’s deadline of December 31 this year, Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Saturday approved the composition of the Central Organisational Election Authority (CEA). With this, the process of a revamp in the party, after its spate of drubbings at the hustings, has also gained momentum with insiders saying a meeting of the Congress Working Committee on the issue too will be held soon.

The party’s internal elections, which are due every five years, have to end by December 31. The party has since sought three extensions from the Election Commission.

Mullappally Ramachandran was elected as the chairman of the CEA while Rajya Sabha members Bhubaneshwar Kalita and Madhusudan Mistry were appointed as members. As per a Congress notification, Madhusudan Mistry, AICC general secretary, will not hold any organisational post as per party constitution.

MP Shamsher Singh Dullo, ex-MP Ashk Ali Tak and MP Biren Singh Ekti were appointed as the advisory committee members of the CEA. This development has now kicked off the process of its organisational polls long overdue that will culminate with the election of the Congress president by October 15 this year.

Earlier, the grand old party asked all State units to wind up the ongoing membership drive by May 15. According to the organisational poll schedule issued by Ramachandran, the election to the post of Congress president will be held between September 16 and October 15 and for this he has asked all district Congress chiefs to end by May 15 their primary membership enrolment drive that started in 2015. He also asked them to publish the list of members by May 30.

In the second phase, the election of president, vice-president and other office bearers of block Congress committees is required to be completed between August 21 and September 4, while those to district Congress committees are to be completed between September 5 and 15.

“I would like to remind you that under no circumstances the date of enrolment and submission of membership forms will be extended beyond May 15,” AICC general secretary Janardan Dwivedi, said in his communication to state chiefs and party office-bearers across the country.

The Election Commission had turned down a request by the Congress for a year’s extension and asked it to complete the formality by the end of June. The main Opposition party replied that it will be able to complete the process only by December 2017.

After exchanges of letters, the EC had finally accepted Congress’ request seeking extension of deadline by December 31 and asked the party to submit its list of new office-bearers by January 2018.