Congress membership drive, which started on the 1st of November 2021, has been extended by 15 days after state units fell behind on their enrolment targets. According to reports, the membership drive has been extended till 15th April 2022. Reportedly, Sonia Gandhi gave her consent to extend the drive after several General Secretaries and the party in-charges sought more time to finish the process since the process had not “gathered pace”.
The emphasis of the membership drive has been to get as many people to sign up for the Congress digitally, to help the party overcome electoral challenges that it faces on a regular basis.
KC Venugopal tweeted that the extension of the membership drive would not affect the organisational elections meant to be held, as decided by the CWC.
Hon’ble Congress President has approved the proposal of the AICC GSs and Incharges for extension of the Special Membership Drive for 15 days. The drive will now close on the 15th of April 2022, without affecting the schedule of Organisational Elections approved by the CWC.
— K C Venugopal (@kcvenugopalmp) March 31, 2022
Keeping in tune with the “Sonia Gandhi is unhappy” template, media reported that according to their sources, Sonia Gandhi was not happy with the way the membership drive had been conducted, however, she had categorically stated that postponing the organisational elections would send a wrong signal.
The demand to extend the membership drive comes as enrolments did not meet Congress targets in several states. Interestingly, the state of Kerala was one of the states asking for an extension on the drive. The drive did not pick up much pace in other states like Uttar Pradesh, Manipur, Goa, Uttarakhand and Punjab due to the assembly elections. Given that Congress lost spectacularly in all 5 states, it comes as no surprise that the membership drive did not take off and pick pace in these states.
According to media sources, Telangana performed the best by adding 39 lakh members since November while Delhi added 2.5 members. The target for Congress Delhi was 10 lakhs.
Reports indicate that while Assam Congress had set their target as 33 lakhs, they have only been able to achieve only 50% of their target. Congress “insiders” being quoted by the media are claiming that it is likely that Congress in Assam won’t be able to achieve even their previous membership number of 24 lakh.
When contacted, Assam PCC president Bhupen Borah admitted that there indeed has been a shortfall. Sources have also indicated that after losing the 2021 elections, several old members (who are still members) have been dormant and not too many new people wish to join Congress, therefore, meeting the target could be difficult.
Given that these numbers have probably been provided by Congress sources to the media, the authenticity of these numbers cannot be trusted completely.
