As campaigning to the Delhi elections wound up on Thursday evening, the Congress headquarters was gearing up for a brainstorming session under vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Friday to plan organisational elections amidst an effort to amend the party constitution to sync it with changing times.

One key amendment is online membership — something the BJP already allows, including to people who make a missed call to a designated number.

At the Congress Working Committee meeting last month, most members were in favour of allowing online membership but some maintained it should not be an exercise to inflate numbers.

According to Mullapally Ramachandran, chairman of the Central Election Authority of the party, there should be a “robust scrutiny” of online members. Another amendment pertains to single membership to the party. If single membership is allowed, it would become mandatory for the Congress to allow those enrolled with its frontal organisations to become members of the party subject to payment of the specified fee.

Both these suggestions seek to break the stranglehold powerful groups and leaders within the Congress have over the membership drive that the party undertakes ahead of every organisational election.

Also on board is a proposal to revert to the system of primary and active membership where only those who enrol 25 people can claim to be an active member and contest elections to party posts.

One key issue for Friday’s meeting is whether the polls should be held on the basis of members enrolled till February-end – when the current membership drive is to end – or should some mechanism be evolved to factor in new members due to the amendments. To deal with this, Mr. Ramachandran has drawn up a staggered schedule for the organisational elections with four States – Karnataka, Telangana, Orissa and Haryana — going to the polls in the first phase in May soon after the special session of the All India Congress Committee in Delhi during the recess period of the Budget Session of Parliament to amend the constitution.

The second phase of polls will be held in July and the third in September.

Another office-bearer indicated that Friday’s meeting of general secretaries, secretaries and heads of frontal organisations may discuss the financial crunch being faced by the Congress. With corporate funding drying up even before the Lok Sabha polls, the party is in over-draft and various suggestions are being floated to generate resources including increasing the membership fee which currently stands at Rs. 5.

Source: TH