Collegium System: Amid e-membership drive, Congress plans online poll to form collegium to elect party president

The Congress organisational elections-linked ongoing celebration membership drive – which has been switched for the primary time from the normal paper-based membership to e-membership by means of a verified app – is now planning to conduct an internet election among the many members by means of the identical e-platform to decide on the AICC members and PCC delegates, who will represent the electoral collegium to elect the following Congress president by August-September, it’s learnt.

Of the seven lakh membership enrollers (beforehand referred to as “lively members”), those that enrol above 50 contemporary members every shall be eligible to contest to change into AICC members and PCC delegates (roughly eight to 9 thousand, together with the co-opted class of sure workplace bearers). Over three lakh enrollers are anticipated to be clearing this eligibility standards.

The membership drive will finish on April 15 (besides in UP the place it’s prone to be prolonged to “make up the time misplaced” to meeting polls) and is anticipated to take the Congress membership “effectively above six crore” lastly together with over three crore anticipated within the present drive plus retention of practically three crore enrolled final time in 2017, based on individuals concerned within the conduct and every day monitoring of the e-membership-drive.

This drive is being overseen by the Madhusudan Mistry-led Central Election Authority in coordination with the Praveen Chakravarty-headed AICC Information Analytical Division by means of Pradesh Returning Officers (PROs) and celebration enrollers. The memberships collected in paper format, alongside the e-membership, have been lately determined to be transformed into digital codecs, it’s learnt.

How truthful and clear this drive shall be, to win the credibility take a look at of the aspiring AICC members and PCC delegates of a celebration riven by inner rifts, stays to be seen. Rahul Gandhi is learnt to have internally described this e-drive as “the X-Ray of the Congress organisation” even because the organisers insist that the verified digital memberships will eliminate “bogus memberships”. The Congress membership drive and the upcoming organisational polls arouse particular curiosity this time because of the celebration’s change-seekers’ demand for truthful organisational polls, together with to the celebration president’s put up and to the CWC.

The organisers insist that the drive, by means of a brand new Android “Congress Membership App” made “obtainable solely to” permitted Congress celebration leaders, office-bearers and staff and that solely the permitted “enrollers” go to door to door for membership recruitment, makes it a fool-proof, verified and tight digital membership programme which additionally doesn’t admit memberships by means of “missed calls” technique.

“New members undergo a four-step verification course of by the enroller.They’re first verified by the enroller, then by means of their respective cellular quantity by means of an OTP, varification of their voter-id numbers by means of the app and at last their {photograph} by the AICC is verified”, an organiser stated. As soon as a member is verified, they’re issued a digital ID card with a novel QR Code for authenticity. This ID card shall be used because the voter card for inner celebration elections.