Grassroots community: Sathyamurthy Bhavan, the headquarters of the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee. Round 16,700 village panchayat and ward committees have been fashioned. The goal is 25,000 committees, says TNCC common secretary M. Vasantharaj.| Photograph Credit score: FILE PHOTO
In a State the place the Congress enjoys no robust political clout, the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC) is aspiring to create “an army of workers” — just like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh — that may take the celebration’s ideology and insurance policies on to the voters by way of village panchayat and ward committees.
This initiative is completely different from membership drives or sales space committees of the previous; it’s an try and create Congress committees (with presidents, secretaries, and vice-presidents) at village panchayats and wards, celebration sources say.
Since December final 12 months, the celebration has tried to represent “verified” committees underneath the supervision of senior chief Peter Alphonse; the credentials of the committee members are vetted earlier than they’re given id playing cards with images and QR codes.
TNCC common secretary M. Vasantharaj, tasked with coordinating the trouble, mentioned, “Around 16,700 committees have been formed. The target is 25,000 committees. Our team will call the [phone] numbers to verify the members’ names and villages/wards and whether they are the Congress members. The aim is to prevent data fudging. The party may change the presidents of the AICC, the Pradesh Congress Committees, the Block Congress Committees, and the District Congress Committees; but the village panchayat and ward committees will not change. “We want to create a cadre of Congress workers who can be engaged at the grassroots,” he mentioned.
Celebration sources mentioned round 40,000 id playing cards had been distributed and the purpose was to seek out at the very least two lakh Congress staff. “These people are already there on the ground; what we are doing is to unite them. Once we have Congress workers on the ground, we have to engage them continuously. Hopefully, the party leadership will be able to do it,” Mr. Vasantharaj mentioned.
Nevertheless, a senior chief shouldn’t be so enthusiastic. He factors to comparable initiatives up to now when the membership knowledge have been made up. He says, “Around 1,531 people were given identity cards in north Chennai recently, thanks to the efforts of North Chennai District Congress Committee president Dilli Babu. But the party couldn’t mobilise even 300 workers for the National Herald case protest. The fact is that the party’s vote-bank has come down by 2%. The claims of parties, like the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi, that they have more clout than the Congress is true.”
Revealed – July 27, 2025 09:25 pm IST
