The Congress Monday admitted for the first time that there were some lacunae in the democratisation process implemented by Rahul Gandhi in the student and youth wing of the party.

While the party made a frank assessment of his initiative, the Congress vice-president set in motion a process to ensure that the next president of its student wing will be elected, and not nominated.

The post of national presidents of the Indian Youth Congress and the NSUI have so far been kept out of the election process. Sources said the state presidents of the NSUI and its national officer-bearers, who form the electoral college, voted last week to elect its new national president. The term of present NSUI president Rohit Chaudhary has ended.

The sources said 12 candidates were in the fray and among them were NSUI national general secretaries Mohit Sharma and Amrita Dhawan and vice-president Roji John.

While Rahul made it clear that he is going ahead with his democratisation drive despite the criticism by a section of the party that the internal polls have blunted the agitational edge of the youth and students wing as it resulted in creating a “bureaucratic set-up” of leadership, the Congress admitted there were some deficiencies in the election process which has to be addressed.

Even while lauding the introduction of the election process in the youth and student wings, the Congress from its official podium said there were lacunae. “ The Congress will set it right,” Congress spokesperson Shaktisinh Gohil said at the AICC briefing when asked whether the internal election experiment has been a success.

He said any new experiment would have to undergo some modifications on the basis of the experience. Hours before the Congress spoke about it, the president of the student wing in Kerala too suggested changes in the process and demanded that the party consult all former Youth Congress and NSUI state and national presidents to improve the system.

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