The old and the restless

The high-profile think-tank of the Congress, Group to Look into Future Challenges, is giving jitters to veteran party leaders. At its last two meetings, Rahul Gandhi raised the issue of the party “quota system” through which veteran leaders keep aside a number of seats in an election for which they nominate their cronies as candidates. Rahul is determined to end this system, say insiders. While there are many suggestions on how to go about it, one is to fix responsibility on the veterans: if their nominees lose by a certain margin of votes, the patrons should be asked to resign whatever posts they hold, be it as Congress Working Committee (CWC) members or in other capacities. The poor veterans don’t have any shoulders to cry on, what with Rahul himself showing little sympathy for them.