Karnataka Congress to conduct organisational polls after a decade

BENGALURU: After a gap of 10 years, Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) has finally decided to hold organisational polls to elect its office-bearers at block and district levels. The process is likely to commence before August. Recently, the Congress appointed 179 office-bearers, including 49 vice- presidents. According to sources, Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president DK Shivakumar is keen on conducting polls at micro-level to elect office-bearers at block and district units.

There are 2-3 blocks in each Assembly constituency and each block will have 100-150 booths. Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee now has close to 80 lakh members who will elect the office-bearers at booth level. They in turn will elect the block office- bearers and the block office-bearers will elect the District Congress Committee (DCC) office-bearers. Each booth/block/DCC will have a president, vice-president, general secretary, secretary, treasurer and other executive committee members.

“Those who want to contest these elections first have to be primary members of the party for which they have to pay Rs 100. Once they become a primary member, they can contest for office-bearers post,” a party functionary said. Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee working president Saleem Ahmed told The New Indian Express that the KPCC organised its membership drive after a gap of nearly seven years. “We are strengthening our party at booth level,” he said.

Though state Congress president DK Shivakumar wants to hold these polls, not many local leaders, including MLAs, are happy with this as they want to appoint block and district office-bearers of their choice ahead of the 2023 Assembly polls. “All these years, office-bearers were elected unanimously without polls. MLAs would lobby for their aide and get them appointed as office-bearers,” sources in the Congress added.