In what looks like a ‘Rahul Brigade’ in the making, the Congress is grooming a band of educated youth, trained in political ideology and well-versed in issues of governance, to take up the mantle at the grassroots level in every district of the country.The first batch of 150 youngsters aged between 25 and 35 years is currently undergoing a training programme in New Delhi. The training camp that started on Wednesday is stretched over 20 sessions in 10 days. During this period, they will cover 18 subjects—each covered in three hours through a lecture followed by a question-answer session. These lectures will be delivered by “knowledgeable” party leaders, academicians with Congress leanings and also ministers in the UPA Government. The idea of this training programme, conceived and supervised by Janardan Dwivedi, the AICC general secretary in charge of the Training Department , is rooted in the belief that the party should develop a fresh crop of committed leaders at the grassroots level who would communicate and spread the party’s ideology and programmes among the people.While External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee gave a lecture on political ideology on Thursday, Union Minister Jairam Ramesh is expected to take a class on economic policy on Friday. Party general secretary Rahul Gandhi is also likely to address the group. The move has come at a time when Rahul Gandhi, scion of the Nehru-Gandhi family, is being groomed and projected as an icon of youth in India. While the Amethi MP, who was recently appointed AICC General Secretary in charge of Youth Congress and NSUI, is engaged in discussions on programmes to appeal to the youth across the country, AICC Training Department’s initiative is aimed at building “a sort of assembly line” which would search, groom and develop ideologically committed youth power and build a new crop of future Congress leaders, said sources in the party.To this end, the party has fixed some criteria including age limit between 25 and 35 years and graduation as minimum educational qualification. Three candidates will be selected from each district of the country and tentatively grouped in batches of 75 each for the training programme covering one state at a time.The subjects • Gandhian Thought & Future of Humankind• Economic Policies & Indian Economy• Role of Youth in Nation Building• Constitution of India & Panchayati Raj• Social Justice and Casteism• Secularism and Communal Politics• History of the Congress• Political Ideologies• Labour Movements in India and Mobilisation of Working Class of the Unorganised Sector• Foreign Affairs• Achievements of the UPA Government as envisaged in 2004 manifesto
