New Delhi: The Congress's debacle in the Lok Sabha elections wherein the party has been restricted to just 44 seats in the 543-member House marked the spectacular failure of not party's Vice President Rahul Gandhi but also of his experiments. Rahul's pet project of introducing US style 'primaries' to elect candidates for Lok Sabha polls through direct feedback of grassroot party workers failed to yield the desired result.
Not a single such nominee from the 15-earmarked seats could win his or her constituency. Prominent among those who lost are Rahul's key aide Meenakshi Natarajan from Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh, AICC General Secretary Ajay Maken from New Delhi and former Delhi PCC chief JP Agarwal from North East Delhi.
Rahul had announced about his pet project at an All India Congress Committee meeting on January 17 wherein the candidate would be finalised by asking party workers but the experiment to empower grassroot leaders has fallen flat. He even said that if the experiment proved successful, then it would be implemented nationwide in future elections. The announcement was made after party's rout in the Assembly elections in December 2013.
The parliamentary seats where candidates were selected through "primaries" are New Delhi and North-East Delhi (Delhi), Guwahati (Assam), Bhavnagar (Gujarat), Bangalore North and Daskshin Kanadda (Karnataka), Indore and Mandsaur (Madhya Pradesh), Wardha and Latur (Maharashtra), Bikaner and Jhunjhunu (Rajasthan), Sant Kabir Nagar and Ambedkar Nagar (Uttar Pradesh), and Kolkata North (West Bengal).
Under the primaries, a representative section of party workers, leaders and others, decided the Congress candidate from their constituency by participating in a simple voting process. The party had said that the process would continue as it was part of the long-terms plans to bring changes in ticket distribution.
With Rahul's failing endeavours and party's worst ever tally in the Lok Sabha, can the party put its future in danger by allowing Rahul to continue with his experiments. If the steps are not taken to stop it, then it would be just a matter of time that the Congress which is a national party will be included in the regional parties list by facing similar fate or even worse.
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