Rahul’s democratic poll format fails: Thakur

Says corruption dominates YC, NSUI election processes

Demands selection of fair-imaged candidates

Raipur, August 17, 2012

The AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi’s democratic poll pattern adopted for Youth Congress (YC) and NSUI is now being criticised overtly in the party with demands increasing to stop the new methodology of electing candidates and shift to old format of choosing the popular ones with fair image on unanimity.

The YC’s former state secretary Harish Thakur is one such critic who feels that Gandhi’s poll formula in YC and NSUI has completely failed in its objective.

“Nothing new happened after adopting Gandhi’s so-called transparent method of election as factionalism, corruption and money-game continue to dominate the YC and NSUI poll procedures,” he said.  

“Even the representatives of Foundation for Advanced Management of Elections (FAME), established by Gandhi for smooth electioneering process, could not remain untouched by grafts. The pradesh returning officers (PROs) and Lok Sabha returning officers (LROs) too engage in corruption and hence the defeated candidates are being announced as winners in many areas,” he charged.

“How come Gandhi’s poll procedures be transparent when a booth-level aspirant has to incur the cost of YC membership fee (i.e. Rs 15 for each member) to build his supporters’ team? The more a candidate aspires, the more he has to spend. Hence, the YC’s Vidhan Sabha aspirant spends about Rs 1.50 lakh while the Lok Sabha aspirant spends about Rs two lakh. The expenditure of state president candidate reaches about Rs 15 lakh. In this scenario, the fair-imaged but financially weaker candidates could be expected to win any level of polls,” he said.

“The YC and NSUI polls in Chhattisgarh are actually being hijacked by the rich and corrupt people and therefore the candidates with clean image are not getting opportunity to come forward,” he alleged.

“This practice could be seen in urban as well rural areas. However, if this condition in the Congress and its frontal organisations would persist then it would have to face severe defeat in upcoming Assembly and general elections,” he said.

He demanded from Gandhi to stop adopting democratic method of election in YC and NSUI to allow better candidates from lower and middle class to enter in politics.

His demand came about a month before the YC polls which is likely to be held on second fortnight of September 2012.

Notably, during Gandhi’s recent visit, some of the YC and NSUI workers in separate programmes had tried to convey him the message that polls in both the organisations cannot be fought without squandering money.