New Delhi: Topics ranging from the decision of the Congress to skip the Ram Temple consecration ceremony to the party’s demand for a nation-wide caste census—which bore Rahul Gandhi’s imprint—came up for discussions as he interviewed the candidates for the next president of the Indian Youth Congress (IYC).
From the Congress’s Surguja Lok Sabha candidate Shashi Singh to Haryana Youth Congress chief Divyanshu Budhiraja, Rajasthan MLA Abhimanyu Poonia to Bihar Youth Congress chief Shiv Prakash Garib Das, Rahul interviewed 31 candidates this week in two batches.
As they walked in for the interviews Monday and Tuesday, the candidates found the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha waiting with their individual profiles, in which their personal and organisational journeys were meticulously mapped out.
Also present in the interview panel were Congress general secretary (organisation) K.C. Venugopal, incumbent IYC president Srinivas B.V. and party joint secretary (in-charge IYC) Krishna Allavaru, four candidates interviewed by Rahul told ThePrint. The interviews were held in a group discussion format.
Among the specific questions that Rahul posed was one on the Congress giving the consecration ceremony of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya a miss. “He (Rahul) sought our opinion on the party’s decision, saying it faced a lot of flak from various quarters,” one of the candidates told ThePrint on the condition of anonymity as they were asked not to talk about the deliberations in the media.
The Congress had skipped the consecration ceremony, held ahead of the Lok Sabha elections on 22 January, with Rahul saying that it had been captured by “Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the RSS” and been turned into an election function.
The PM and the Sangh, Rahul had said, “our principal opponents have captured the function and turned it into an election function. The RSS and the BJP have given the 22 January function an election flavour, a political flavour.”
The decision of the Congress was described by the BJP as “another evidence of the Gandhi family being anti-Hindu”.
In the interviews, Rahul also brought up questions on social justice and social equality. “The panel wanted us to articulate our position on caste census that is being aggressively by the party across forums. Even before the question was asked, many candidates had already spoken about their plan to strengthen the fight for reservations for the marginalised classes in the event of their selection as the Youth Congress chief,” the candidate added.
“He wanted to know our views on the BJP’s brand of politics and functioning as opposed to the politics of the Congress party.”
Rahul categorically told the interviewees that he wants the Youth Congress president to be secular-minded with a “national outlook”. “He had the biodata of the candidates. It was essentially their profiles detailing their individual journeys in the party’s organisation hierarchy so far,” another candidate, who has also fought the 2024 general elections, said.
Then there were questions on the vision that every candidate has for the growth of the IYC. “He wanted to know our roadmap for the IYC. Banoge toh kya karoge? (What will you do if you become the president of the Youth Congress?) There were no one-on-one sessions as such, but the candidates were made to sit together and respond individually. The format was that of a group discussion,” one of the aspirants said.
Rahul ever since he formally joined the Congress, has been personally invested in, what he described as, “democratising” the IYC by holding internal elections across states, weeding out members aged above 35 years, among others.
Srinivas, the incumbent president of the Youth Congress, was first appointed as its interim chief in July 2019, following the resignation of Keshav Chand Yadav from the position after the Lok Sabha elections. In December, 2020, he was made its regular president.
Srinivas’s tenure has been marked by numerous street demonstrations led by the Congress youth wing across the country, with him leading from the front, often getting lathi-charged and being detained. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the IYC also made headlines for its efforts to provide oxygen cylinders to patients in distress, including embassies in Delhi.
Past presidents of the IYC, which was founded in 1960, who rose up the ranks in the Congress include the late Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi, Ambika Soni, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma, Ramesh Chennithala, Manish Tewari, and Randeep Singh Surjewala.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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