Taking the first step to rejuvenate the organisational setup, the Congress on Thursday appointed party MlA from Punjab Amrinder Singh Raja Brar as the new president of Indian Youth Congress.
He replaces Maharashtra MP Rajiv Satav, who had completed his 5-year tenure in October but was continuing in his post till his successor was named. The appointment comes a day after Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi convened a meeting of the AICC General Secretaries to take stock of the party at grass root level and reasons of successive electoral defeats. “Congress President Sonia Gandhi has approved the name of Amrinder Singh Raja Brar, MlA (Punjab), as President of Indian Youth Congress with immediate effect,” party General Secretary Janardan Dwivedi said in a statement.
His appointment is likely to be followed by a massive revamp of the organisation both at PCC level and AICC level shortly. Congress MP from Hingoli in Maharashtra Satav’s term as the Youth Congress chief had ended long ago. Brar is fondly called ‘Warring’ after his village name and he has been a Youth Congress General Secretary and held positions in Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee. The 37-year-old MlA from Gidderbaha Assembly constituency said his immediate priority would be to strengthen the organisation by enrolling youth in large numbers from booth level onwards and “expose” the failures of the BJP-led central government by holding protests and other programmes.
Brar has now come in the league of number of leaders who have served the IYC as its chief like Ghulam Nabi Azad, Ambika Soni, Gurudas Kamat, Anand Sharma, Mukul Wasnik, Ramesh Chennithala, Manish Tewari, Randeep Surjewala and Ashok Tanwar. Grappling to arrest the party’s sliding base, Rahul had asked AICC general secretaries to reach out to workers at the grassroots for feedback on how to take the party forward after successive poll debacles. Congress sources said a meeting of AICC could be called to discuss the suggestions received after two months, when the process closes. The party also plans to come out with a compilation of the suggestions in a booklet form.
Issues like how to widen the party’s reach, what should Congress organisation look like and whether any changes are required, and how to push the core ideology of Congress among people and convey to the cadres with clarity were discussed in the crucial meeting chaired by Rahul. The defeat trail of Congress has not stopped since the lok Sabha polls, which saw its tally dropping to an abysmal 44 from 206 in 2009. Barring the Assembly election results in some states a few months ago, there has been no silver lining for the party in the past six months.