Journalism of Courage
By announcing various office bearers, including 24 district presidents, 11 vice-presidents, 35 general secretaries and 82 secretaries, as well as a political affairs committee, the Jharkhand state Congress unit on Saturday announced to the world that it has managed to rebuild its organisational strength, and has come a long way from the past, when it was riven with political bickering, severe infighting and even allegations of compromising on its values and ideology.
Among those named in the 26-member political affairs committee by AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge were AICC in-charge Avinash Pande, state unit chief Rajesh Thakur, Congress Legislature Party leader Alamgir Alam, former chief minister Madhu Koda, Rameshwar Oraon and Ajoy Kumar.
“Our ideological opposition is the BJP, but in Jharkhand, Hemant Soren had been making inroads into our voter base. We had been telling the party for long to act on it and not be a mute spectator. So, after the current AICC president took over, we convinced him to appoint various stakeholders for macro to micro level management. This has given an impetus to many leaders who wanted an active role in the party,” said a state Congress insider.
The Congress was in trouble as recently as in 2019, when the then state unit president Ajoy Kumar resigned after the party lost Lok Sabha seats in the state. Kumar wrote a letter against senior state leaders, alleging they were the “worst criminals”, “rent seekers” and people “seeking to grab political posts” who “collect money in the name of elections”. Later on, though, the Congress formed the government along with the JMM and the RJD. However, many leaders were worried that CM Soren wanted to ‘politically end the Congress’ in the state.
Slowly the Congress rebuilt organisational strength so that it could have booth-level workers, said another leader. “We are trying to take a leaf out of the BJP. For that, booth level workers are key to tackling the 2024 assembly elections. The Congress party will not cower to any pressure from other parties just because we are a junior partner in the start. People appointed will also work to strengthen the party so that we can have a narrative of our own,” another leader said.
The leader added: “We have seen several high-pitch political speeches by CM Soren, which is creating a divide between speakers of the Jharkhandi and non-Jharkhandi languages. He’s polarising voters in his favour. Through our activities, we have planned to reinforce our image in the public and leave optically strong imprint.”
