In the mid of controversy over Primaries seat selection criteria, all the Delhi MPs — including Union Ministers Kapil Sibal and Krishna Tirath — who had expressed reservation over their seats being included in the primaries selection, on Monday virtually “volunteered” to offer their seats for the Primaries.
There are seven lok Sabha seats in Delhi — New Delhi, South Delhi, North East Delhi, North West Delhi, East Delhi, West Delhi and Chandni Chwok represented by Ajay Maken, Ramesh Kumar, JP Agarwal, Krishna Tirath, Sandeep Dikshit, Mahabal Mishra and Kapil Sibal respectively.
Following the controversy raised by Sibal and Tirath as what were the criteria over selection of primaries seats considering themselves to be senior most, the party withdrew their lok Sabha seats from primaries selection. Same day last week AICC general secretaries Gurudas Kamat, Mandsaur MP Meenakshi Natarajan and Ajay Maken requested the party to include their lok Sabha seats in the list of primaries to set forth an example.
In a meeting convened on Monday to seal the fate of two seats under the party’s new scheme of candidate selection party, it was decided since all Delhi MPs offering their seats it would be prudent to wait for few days to take a call on which seats to be included or excluded or whether the party will opt for all the seven seats for primaries. In this case the primaries seats would go to 22 and Delhi would set an example across the country more especially in the opposition ranks, said a senior Congress leader monitoring the Congress’ new scheme to get rid the party of “high command culture.”
The meeting was chaired by Union Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and the seats in the wish list of Primaries will be announced mid-February. Azad is in charge of the two member authority to hold primaries besides AICC secretary Prakash Joshi. Joshi has an expertise as being the election commissioner when Rahul introduced internal elections in the Youth Congress and NSUI.
The electoral college of the primaries would have about 1000 members and the party has involved an NGO named Foundation for Advanced Management of Elections (FAME) run by former election commissioners including J M lyngdoh, T S Krishnamurthy, N Gopalsamy and KJ Rao to overlook and monitor the entire modus operandi of primaries.
AICC General Secretary Ajay Maken told The Pioneer that the process will continue as it is part of the long-terms plans to bring sweeping changes in ticket distribution and other processes in the party. “Primaries system will empower the party workers in candidate’s selection and people will rise up the ladder through the organisation. This will complete the full cycle of reforms in Government and political system and cleanse it. This is the thinking of the Congress vice-president behind the move,” Maken said.
Initially Rahul had decided to carry on the pilot project of primaries over 25 lok Sabha seats but curtailed to 15 for want of enough time and manpower. The 12 seats already decided currently are not being held by Congress and they are Aurangabad and Yavatmal in Maharashtra, Indore in MP, Bangalore North and Dakshina Kannada in Karanataka, Bhavnagar and Vadodara in Gujarat, Sant Kabir Nagar and Varanasi in UP, Bikaner in Rajasthan, Guwahati in Assam, and Kolkata North in West Bengal. In the wake sitting MP Rao Inderjit Singh quitting Congress, the seat represented by him Gurgaon may be on of the NCR lok Sabha Primaries seat.