Sonia Gandhi at a Congress rally in Bangalore. Picture by Kashif Masood

New Delhi, May 9: Many in the Congress are dismayed that the party organisation has been neglected during its four years in power.

The number of Congress Working Committee (CWC) meetings has fallen sharply since May 2004. The party president’s visits to the state units have become more infrequent.

At 24 Akbar Road, there are too many office-bearers but too few of them have been attending office. A senior All India Congress Committee (AICC) official has not even bothered to have an office at the party headquarters.

The last conclave of party chief ministers took place in November 2006. Even the six-monthly AICC sessions have become passé.

Sources said that when Sonia Gandhi took over from Sitaram Kesri as AICC president on March 14, 1998, she insisted on holding at least one CWC meeting every 45 days.

The practice continued till May 1999 when Sonia received a jolt at her residence from the Sharad Pawar-P.A. Sangma-Tariq Anwar alliance.

At a meeting in 10 Janpath, the trio went on raising questions on her “foreign origins” at the party’s highest decision-making body. In the period that followed, Sonia got a little disillusioned with CWC meetings.

Still, 14 CWC meetings were held in the year 2000. The number, however, fell to 12 in 2001, to eight in 2002 and to seven in 2003.

The frequency of CWC meetings took a further nosedive after 2004. Between January 2005 and December 2006, only 10 were held, including condolences and the customary pre-plenary session meeting in January 2006.

Since January 2008, only one CWC meeting has taken place.

Sources close to Sonia defended her, citing her pre-occupation with running the ruling coalition and keeping the partners happy. They said that with the party in power, the CWC had assumed a sort of secondary role since government policies and programmes reflected the party line.

But old-timers disagree. They say that Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi used to hold CWC meetings regularly even when they were in power.

Both mother and son would insist also on having meetings of the central parliamentary board, a 10-member body that wielded supreme authority in all important matters, including the appointment of state party presidents and chief ministers, and the selection of poll candidates.

One arm of the Congress that has suffered visibly is the Youth Congress. Most of its state units are now headless — even the one in election-bound Madhya Pradesh.

In many other states, the Youth Congress is lampooned as a “dad’s army”, packed with over-age office-bearers and presidents. According to the party constitution, a Youth Congress president must not be over 35 but in states such as Bengal, Assam, Rajasthan and Gujarat, the unit chiefs are all over the age limit.