Congress MP Shashi Tharoor (File) Congress MP Shashi Tharoor (File)

What is the idea behind AIPC?

There are so many educated professionals who are interested in politics but have no clue how to access it. And they feel that politics is a closed shop. The classic political activities like dharna, hartals and so on do not interest them. Their interest is idea, policies and all. So we are saying we will give you a platform. Come in, we will create an Indian National Professional Congress which would have chapters… every individual would sign up with an address and they would belong to a chapter at their address.

That chapter has to have a minimum of 25 members and a maximum of 100. They will have weekly meetings, discuss current affairs… you actually encourage them… in some cases by Congress leaders coming… they connect with each other through WhatsApp groups. They feed each other through the chain to the state level and then to the national level.

We then create projects and tasks for them. For instance, once we have a few chapters we can task them to monitor how Swachh Bharat is doing in their area… they can use their professional skills to monitor such schemes… What they feed to us will be input for Congress spokespersons and Congress policy makers and Congress speakers in Parliament.

So, they will just help Congress. What is in it for them?

It will be a two-way traffic. They will be contributing their expertise. It also becomes potentially a recruitment pool because people who will come into the party through this mechanism may have skills and talents which are otherwise not available to us. They could join many of our other… they could join the research department, become spokespersons… there are a number of things which the Congress could use them for if they are interested.

BJP has professional forums like this. Is there a realisation that it is time the Congress reach out to the middle class?

I have been saying this for some years now. If you see my article and columns… I have been arguing for it… it is not totally new. Many of us have felt the need for this. …but we are doing it now. But it is a good time because a lot of the middle classes who voted for the Modi government in 2014 are increasingly disillusioned.

They say we voted for economic growth and ease of doing business and efficiency and instead we got cow vigilantism and bigotry being unleashed on us. That is not what we voted for. Lot of people have come and told us that the Congress will have to stand up. There are others, some of the professional middle classes, who might have turned to the AAP. They are also equally disillusioned with the AAP because it has come across as a rather cynical outfit and its reputation now is not what used to be. So people are genuinely looking for a platform which has competence and at the same time values their professional skills.

Rahul Gandhi with the vice-chairman Milind Deora (2nd L) and four Regional Coordinators Gaurav Gogoi (L), Rahul Gandhi with the vice-chairman Milind Deora (2nd L) and four Regional Coordinators Gaurav Gogoi (L), Shashi Tharoor (3rd R), J Geeta Reddy (2nd R) and Salman Soz (R) of the party’s newly formed department All India Professional Congress. (PTI Photo)

The perception has been that educated professionals, the middle or upper middle classes, by and large are Modi supporters. Do you think you will get a good response?

Yes, yesterday the response was so astonishing that the system crashed with thousands of people trying to log in. We had to migrate to a larger server which was done overnight.

Congress also announced setting up of All India Unorganised Workers Congress. So, finally there is some activity in the party?

We are trying to reach all segments. It is unfair to say that there was no activity earlier. But I can certainly say that the party vice-president is taking a personal initiative to revive the party and these are all led by him. You will see more innovation in the party structure and organisation. He has various plans… particularly the objective is to reach out to segments of the society who have perhaps for one reason or the other been largely neglected by the political establishment.

Rahul Gandhi , Milind Deora (R), Tharoor (3rd R), J Geeta Reddy (2nd R) and Salman Soz (C) interact with the media in New Delhi. (PTI Photo) Rahul Gandhi , Milind Deora (R), Tharoor (3rd R), J Geeta Reddy (2nd R) and Salman Soz (C) interact with the media in New Delhi. (PTI Photo)

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