What is the new system to evaluate Congress leadership in Kerala?
The 134-year-old Indian National Congress has a long history in politics. Since Narendra Modi was elected as Prime Minister in 2014, the Congress is in the reverse gear. Even Covid-19 has not helped the party to re-emerge as most of its leaders are quarantined and cadres disoriented. But the Kerala Congress invented a system to reactivate its leaders by introducing Performance Assessment System (PAS) to rate its leaders and their popularity at grass root levels.
According to KP Anil Kumar, General Secretary of the Congress in Kerala, the Pradesh Congress Committee will introduce a grading system for state leaders and the performance will be evaluated in three categories Green, Yellow and Red. “Green status indicates best performers, Yellow for average performers and Red for non-performers. PCC officials, DCC presidents, Block Presidents, village-level office bearers and party-affiliated organisations’ officials will also come under scrutiny. The reporting starts this month,” Anil Kumar revealed. The PCC Chief Mullappally Ramachandran designated PCC General Secretary Sajeev Joseph to coordinate the PAS evaluation. The performance report will be sent to the All India Congress Committee (AICC) every three months. The PCC Chief has introduced the Performance Assessment System in the meeting of PCC officials on July 4 at Thiruvananthapuram.
However, a few leaders doubt the effectiveness of PAS in political activities and suspect that it was introduced to sideline group managers of Oommen Chandy and Ramesh Chennithala. The factional feuds in Congress party have intensified as the state will face the Local Bodies poll in October and the Assembly election in May 2021. “Rahul Gandhi and his core team introduced a similar system to identify promising leaders in the Youth Congress and National Students Union of India (NSUI). These kinds of evaluations make the party more bureaucratic,” a senior leader told Mail Today.
Congress leadership in the state is in a tough situation as they have to fight the politically strong chief minister and the emerging BJP in Kerala. Normally, the Congress could have won the 2021 Assembly poll with the anti-incumbency factor. But Covid-19 has helped Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan to consolidate his base and he is working with precision to weaken the United Democratic Front. At this time, Congress is concerned with management ideas like targets and tasks without playing hard politics.
(Courtesy of Mail Today)
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