New rules to ruffle more feathers in state Cong

At the booth level,a committee can have 10 members in addition to three office-bearers — a president,vice-president and a treasurer.

At block and booth level as well,state and district level office-bearers,MLAs and MPs would be ex-officio members.

From this month,the party will distribute a new proforma to the presidents of all these committees to furnish a monthly performance report. “We will put all office-bearers on the job. We are drafting a new proforma,it is simple and computerised,where they have to fill the details on activities undertaken by them in their respective areas — such as holding public meetings,performing social work,correcting voter lists,holding agitations and dharnas,” said party in-charge Gulchain Singh Charak.

However,according to state Congress leaders,the move to cap the number of office-bearers and members will open another pandora’s box just before the elections. “There are 25 DCCs and 234 block Congress committees in Punjab. Some of them have over 50 to 100 members. The cap on the number of members in district and block committees will unseat many existing office-bearers. This will again lead to resentment among leaders and party workers. We are already receiving panic calls from district and block level leaders who fear they would loose their positions. With polls approaching,this can prove self-defeating,” a senior leader said.

However,ruling out the possibility of resentment,Charak said many will actually move up the ladder. “Senior leaders in the booth level will be promoted to the block level and those in block level to the district level and so on,” he added.

As for the monthly performance report,the new proforma,they say,will achieve little. “The committees are always asked to conduct mass contact programmes and take the policies of the Congress to the people. But it remains on the books. They do not bother to send any reports. Even if they do,it will not be taken note of. Earlier,there was also talk of having a proforma for performance of Congress MLAs in the state Assembly. How many who are active in the House are there in the PPCC list?” asked another leader.