Team Rahul Gandhi to give Congress a facelift

Keen to revamp the Congress, Rahul Gandhi has been quietly giving a corporate touch to rebuild the grand old party. As part of creating a talent pool of younger leaders, Rahul has been personally evaluating resumes and conducting interviews of around 600 party members who are eager to implement his plans.

Since the Congress suffered the 2014 Lok Sabha poll debacle, Rahul has been planning to enforce largescale changes in the party organisation but could not do so owing to resistance from within.

Sources said the younger leaders who have been selected through the interview process over the past few months are waiting in the wings and whenever the changes in party will be rolled out, they will be given key roles.

This group, in a sense, would be the new team Rahul, which will give a new flavour and purpose to the Congress, which is struggling hard to establish reconnect with the voters since the party was wiped out in the 2014 polls.

In the months after the last Lok Sabha elections, Rahul faced criticism for the party's poor show but could not effectively introduce the changes he sought as the "vested interests" were always managed to derail the process.

Realising that rumours of a senior vs youngster tussle within the party was damaging the Congress more than helping it regroup, Rahul started highlighting the fact that his new team would be a mix of youth and experience, one of the Congress vice president aides said.

The statement took care of the sentiment within the party which was more in favour of status quo than accept the need for a thorough revamp of the Congress, which found itself to be removed from the young aspirational voters.

Sources said Rahul had realised the shortcomings of the culture of patronage, which had been followed for decades to build new leadership, and wanted to shift to a more democratic system where youngsters without a pedigree could hope to rise through the ranks.

"He has been taking keen interest in selecting the candidates and personally interviewing them. He just wants to be sure of the people would implement his agenda in future," a senior AICC functionary told MAIL TODAY.

Last year, there were strong rumours that Rahul would take over as party chief from his mother Sonia Gandhi and unravel his new team. The speculation later shifted the event to early 2016, which seems unlikely as the Congress prepares for the five assembly elections, including Assam and West Bengal, this summer.

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