Posted On Wednesday, February 18, 2009 at 03:24:41 AM

Rahul Gandhi believes young representatives have a far better connect with the electorate and deliver more

This Lok Sabha election, the Congress will be fielding fresh and young candidates to win back Bhavnagar, Rajkot, Ahmedabad, Surat and Gandhinagar constituencies, where they have been losing out since 1990.

With Rahul aggressively targeting the youth and reiterating that 30 per cent of the seats should be given to youngsters, the Congress is in the process of identifying charismatic players who could turn the game around for the party.

A top Congress leader told Mirror that Ahmedabad, Bhavnagar, Rajkot, Surat and Gandhinagar seats, that have been slipping out of Congress’s hand since 1990, can see new faces this time.

Even Vadodara, where the Congress bit the dust in the past two Lok Sabha elections may see a fresh face, despite the fact that Satyajit Gaekwad lost by a small margin in 2004.

“We are in the process of identifying diamonds. We will polish the raw diamonds and once they gain confidence, we will introduce them to the political arena. This is what Rahul Gandhi wants and we are working on it,” said Siddharth Patel, president of the Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee.

“The youth Congress elections will be held soon and we will have around 3,000 elected youngsters across Gujarat. They will be groomed and the best ones shall be fielded, Patel said.

Leader of the Opposition in the Vidhan Sabha Shaktisinh Gohil said the Congress has always had younger leaders than the BJP.

“Rahulji is the youth icon of the party and as per his directions, the youth will be given a chance in constituencies where the Congress has faced successive defeats. He believes young representatives have a far better connect with the electorate, deliver more and can adapt easily to circumstances,” Gohil said.

“A process to identify such leaders and constituencies has already commenced following the directions of AICC working committee,” he added.

Rahul Gandhi had also suggested that youngsters may not necessarily contest “easy seats” and that they could be assigned “challenging seats” too to take on rival BJP. “Give me one youth icon the BJP can come up with in any state,” Modhvadia said.

He claimed that be it Virji Thumar, Vikram Madam, Jashu Barad, Kishan Patel or Tushar Chaudhry, the Congress has always had young MPs. “Along with the youth, the Congress will also be focussing on experienced candidates and women leaders,” he said.
Gaekwad holds one-to-one talks with legislators

FRIDAY SEP 12 2003
By Our Staff Reporter

Pondicherry Sept. 11. The AICC secretary, Satyajit Gaekwad, today held one-to-one discussions with party legislators and office bearers on selection of a nominee for the September 29 Rajya Sabha poll.

The meeting each of the Ministers E. Valsaraj, A. Eluamalai, K. Lakshminarayanan, and M. Chandirakasu and legislators and also two Independents supporting the Rangasamy Government from outside had with the AICC secretary lasted for five to ten minutes. Former Home Minister, P. Kannan, also met Mr. Gaekwad.

Earlier on arrival at a hotel, the PCC leader, Narayanasamy, along with Mr. Valsaraj and the Youth Congress leader, K. Pandian, called on Mr. Gaekwad. Mr. Narayanasamy and Mr. Kannan are among those in the race for the party ticket.

Mr. Gaekwad also held closed-door meetings individually with different functionaries of the party.

A group of representatives of the Mahila Congress also called on him.

Taking time off his busy schedule, he came down at one stage to meet the large number of supporters of Mr. Kannan waiting outside to meet him. They requested Mr. Gaekwad that Mr. Kannan be the nominee for the poll. Mr. Gaekwad said he would pass on the sentiments to the high command for a decision by Sonia Gandhi.

The Chief Minister, N. Rangasamy, and the Agriculture Minister, A. Namassivayam, called on Mr. Gaekwad after they returned from Tindivanam.

Mr. Narayanasamy said Mr. Gaekwad had been requested to participate in the demonstration organised at Villianoor by students wing to protest the `anti-people policies of the NDA Government at the Centre'.

Files nomination

Gujarat averts a crisis

By Manas Dasgupta

GANDHINAGAR, DEC. 6. The symbolic ``kar seva'' by the pro-dam Narmada Jan Andolan, an offshoot of the Maharashtra Shetkari Sangathan, at the dam site in Kevadiya Colony on Saturday was a major success for the BJP Government in Gujarat in defusing the crisis threatening to cause further delay in the implementation of the long-awaited project.

The Andolan all along had the tacit support of the Government. Initially it encouraged the pro-dam forces to plan massive demonstrations both within and outside the State to counter the tirade against it by the Narmada Bachao Andolan and tell the world that the supporters of the dam project outnumbered opponents. But the timings of the kar seva programme proved inconvenient to the Government in view of the case pending before the Supreme Court. When the programme was announced by the Sangathan chief, Mr. Sharad Joshi, in October, the Chief Minister, Mr. Keshubhai Patel, even offered to be present during the ceremony but later it dawned on the State Government that its open support might be misunderstood by the apex court and could prejudice its case as the court criticised the NBA leaders, Ms. Medha Patkar and Ms. Arundhati Roy, for organising public rallies against the project even when it was seized of the matter.

The State Government objected to the NJA offering the kar seva inside the restricted areas of the dam for fear of the Madhya Pradesh Government making it an issue in the apex court and cause further delay in the project implementation.

The Government offered to cooperate if Mr. Joshi shifted the site of the kar seva outside the restricted areas which would not come under court purview. But his refusal, apparently for fear of losing credibility among his supporters, made the Government impose prohibitory orders.

Significantly the Narmada Affairs Minister, Mr. Jaynarayan Vyas, could achieve the objective he was propagating earlier by making the kar sevaks toe his line. Mr. Vyas had no objection to the kar sevaks collecting water downstream, but Mr. Joshi and his Congress(I) supporters were insisting on climbing the dam wall to collect water upstream and pour it into the main canal as a symbolic gesture of ``initiating'' the project.

First Mr. Vyas ordered the authorities concerned to release a substantial quantum of water from the dam to reduce the level and thereby make it impossible for the kar sevaks to reach for the water. Later, he allowed a handful of kar sevaks and their main leaders, including Mr. Joshi and the former Union Minister, Mrs. Urmilaben Patel, to ``penetrate'' the police security at the dead of night and surface downstream to offer the kar seva.In a bid to avert a confrontation between the security staff and the demonstrators, the Government did not allow the kar sevaks to march to Kevadiya Colony in large numbers and detained most of them at transit camps in Baroda, Ankleshwar, Netrang and other places where they had been waiting to leave for the dam site the next morning. It allowed the leaders to perform kar seva downstream as was originally suggested by Mr. Vyas. This, apparently, was a face-saving device for both the State Government and the NJA since a confrontation between the police and the pro-dam forces could have been counter-productive. The BJP leadership, which was planning to send party workers in large numbers to Kevadiya Colony to squat on the roads and prevent the kar sevaks from entering the restricted areas, was also persuaded against implementing the programme to prevent a clash between the two sections of the pro-dam forces.

The former national president of the Youth Congress(I) and supporter of the NJA, Mr. Satyajit Gaekwad, claimed that Mr. Vyas was in touch with the Andolan leaders the previous day to persuade them to perform a token kar seva downstream and resolve the crisis for the time being but backtracked later and the local police threatened to arrest all the leaders to frustrate the move.

Grand campus or a wrestling ring?