By IANS,
Amritsar : Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi Tuesday flew down to this Sikh holy city to personally monitor the conduct of elections of the Punjab Youth Congress (PYC) here.
Gandhi, clad in his trademark ‘kurta-payjama’ and sports shoes, observed the conduct of polls to elect PYC office bearers.
He told youth Congress leaders that he wanted to emulate the “Punjab formula” for youth Congress elections in other states as well.
“In the whole country, the Punjab Youth Congress is the only democratically elected body. We will follow the same model in other states as well,” Gandhi told youth leaders.
He said that internal democracy needed to be strengthened in the Congress party as well.
On his third visit to Punjab and this city in as many months, Gandhi termed the conduct of PYC elections here as “successful”.
Gandhi is the Congress general secretary in-charge of the youth Congress.
He said that 70 percent of the country’s population was that of youth and no political party could afford to ignore this chunk.
Gandhi has been advocating that instead of state youth Congress chiefs and other office bearers being appointed by the Congress leadership, a truly democratic election process should be in place so that even grassroots activists could lead the Youth Congress.
The process of the PYC election, taken as a pilot project by the Youth Congress, lasted three months.
The final round of the election was held at a marriage palace on the Amritsar bypass road amid tight security.
The elections were held in consultation with the Foundation for Advanced Management of Elections (FAME) headed by former chief election commissioner J.M. Lyngdoh.
Gandhi had made an unscheduled and low-profile visit to the ‘Harmandar Sahib’, popularly known as Golden Temple – the holiest of Sikh shrines – Sep 22 this year before he undertook a whirlwind three-day roadshow tour of Punjab.
He followed that visit with another one in November this year along with Lyngdoh to see the election process.