It looked like a university registration with boys and girls in large numbers lining up for registration forms, filling them up on verandas and stairs with mark sheets and testimonials. Some are working with MNCs but want to get into politics which they perceive as a more profitable business. In UP, the talent hunt will be held in three separate zones. Despite the huge rush of aspiring youths, the process has been completed in states like Gujarat. Under the new plan, instead of handpicking the favoured ones, open registration and democratic elections will be held to choose the Youth Congress leaders at block, district and state levels.

In Gujarat, the work was outsourced to election expert K.J. Rao's Election Management Foundation. Candidates short-listed at the state level were to address the 2,300-strong electoral colleague. The first three ranks were assigned the post of president, vice-president and general secretary respectively. However, some of the outgoing office-bearers describe the system as crazy and unfit for a political organisation. Some even talk of the BJP elements using the 'bureaucratic' procedure to infiltrate the YCI.

Originally, Rahul wanted to democratise the parent body's functioning. But when warned that it is going to be highly impractical in the present atmosphere, he agreed to try it at the Youth Congress level. But in many places the Rahul plan has gone haywire. Punjab is one such case. In Kerala, local youth leaders resented the one chosen from Delhi under the new system. This has caused bitterness between Ramesh Chennithala and Oommen Chandy, two senior leaders. In many places, youths picked up as candidates had much higher rates of defeat.

Apart from the faults in the selection system, Rahul's modernisation plans raise many crucial questions. But before this, it is necessary to highlight the highly transient nature of Rahul plan. The YCI has been the launching pad for every young scion of the Gandhi family. First Sanjay Gandhi gave a new life to the party's youth wing. After his sudden death, the organisation became an orphan. Then it got another boost after Rajiv Gandhi entered politics to 'help' his mother. Rajiv was the one who tried maximum modernisation but the painstaking process was abandoned once he became the PM in 1984.

Incidentally, Sanjay's old-style youth management had a more durable impact on the Congress Party than Rajiv's high-tech style which had gone often crazy. The former adopted the traditional agitational methods to toughen his youth cadre. They shouted slogans and went to jail. While the youth leaders groomed by Sanjay still continue to endure the trials and tribulations, except Mani Shankar Aiyar, most of Rajiv's high-profile Doon pals, who had supposedly brought 'quality' and professionalism, deserted him even before the leader's death.

Watch the array of the 70s' YCI products: Ghulam Nabi Azad, Ambika Soni, Anand Sharma, Mukul Wasnik, Gurudas Kamat, Tariq Anwar, Ramesh Chennithala. Kerala's 'liberation struggle' had produced A.K. Antony, Vayalar Ravi, etc, and anti-CPI(M) street fights created those like Priyaranjan Dasmusnhi and Subrata Mukherjee. Even the BJP and social justice parties have their best crop of leadership from the confrontationist 1970s decade. Hence the first poser that emerges from the Rahul experiments is: to what an extent can he create durable leadership assets to the Congress party/? Student and youth outfits now provide the mainstay for political cadre recruitment.

Earlier nationalists and freedom fighters, Gandhians and socialists constituted the political movements. Among them were professionals like doctors, bar-at-law and teachers who had quit their jobs to serve the nation. Later mass organizations like trade unions and farmers' outfits became the recruiting ground. Now that even TU is a dirty word, student/youth movements remains the main catchment areas for political parties. Of late, non-cadre-based parties have begun looking for elite political families, old feudal palaces, Bollywood, glam world and the reigning dons as MPs and ministers. Thus the 'direct' recruits have begun short-circuiting the hard and trek to middle and upper level leadership.

This leads to the second question. Can politics be a career option for the fresh youth, like, say, business, armed forces and government service? This has been the main debating point among the aspirants as they filled in the forms at the Youth Congress offices and hotel premises. The late Pramod Mahajan had talked of an institute of political management. Until a year ago, mainstream media's chief target was the politician who was being projected as crook and corrupt with no brains. This anti-politician outlook seems to be changing with the large-scale entry of business and palace scions and glam into Parliament. As for the youth recruits, experience shows that barring perhaps a couple of them, almost the entire lot of youth activists desert politics and opt for safe jobs before they reach 25.

Rahul's talent hunt closely resembles that of his father who had far more ambitious dreams. In early '80s, he had subjected the entire Congress party leadership with the exception of his mother, to rigorous interview sessions at Siri Fort auditorium. Even those like Kamalapati Tripathi had to fill in a long questionnaire and appear before an interview board. It was made clear to them that future assignments and election tickets to them will depend on the results of the interviews. But after the three-day-long interview mela, no one bothered to process the data. The whole pile remained in a disused bathroom in Akbar Road. And finally in 1992, Narasimha Rao allowed AICC office manager Kotnala to destroy it.

District coordinators was Rajiv's another fancy project. After elaborate talent search, coordinators were to be put up in each district. Parallel to RSS pracharaks, they had wide powers to report directly to the AICC in-charge or Rajiv Gandhi on any happening in the district. They were to be above even the PCC chief. Many were appointed. But no one knows finally what happened to them. A couple of years ago, this writer spotted one of them sitting at cash at a cut piece sales in Delhi.

Sam Pitroda had drawn up an elaborate report on organisational improvement and infrastructure support for Congress party at all levels. Soon came an elaborate training programme for Congress cadres with central training camp being held at Talkatora stadium. The idea was to raise a disciplined cadre on the lines of the RSS. Sadly, all such projects were dropped midstream. (IPA Service)