12 years as Haryana loser, why Congress is going for a rehaul

After nearly 12 years without a full-fledged booth-level organisation in Haryana, during which it contested, unsuccessfully, three Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, the Congress is now turning its focus to its grassroots revamp in the state, seeking to rebuild its organisation from the ground up ahead of the 2029 electoral battles.

The exercise being driven by the new AICC in-charge of Haryana, Sanjay Dutt, envisages a layered organisational structure involving booths, mandals, blocks and districts, along with a training programme aimed at creating a grassroots-based party cadre. The long absence of a formal organisation at the lower levels has repeatedly been cited among the Congress’s major weaknesses in the state.

The proposal of the Congress organisation’s rebuilding was however made several months ago. Under its Sangathan Srijan Abhiyan, the party began reconstituting its district-level organisation. On June 17, it announced 103 block presidents across 19 districts, marking its first major overhaul in nearly 12 years.

Dutt, a Congress leader from Maharashtra, was appointed the party’s Haryana in-charge on June 26, replacing B K Hariprasad, who is now the Karnataka Congress chief.

After a series of meetings with party leaders and workers across Haryana, Dutt met Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi in July to discuss plans to strengthen the state organisation, with greater participation of workers and sustained engagement with voters being focus areas.

“We will form a mandal for every 20 booths to strengthen the party at the grassroots,” Dutt told The Indian Express. He noted that the absence of a grassroots organisation was among the factors behind the Congress’s loss in the 2024 Assembly elections.

The next phase of the Congress’s proposed exercise would combine organisational expansion with cadre training. The party is holding block-level conventions in September. It also plans to hold district-level conventions in October, followed by worker-training programmes in November.

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“Training is intended to create a more structured cadre where master trainers would train workers at lower organisational levels. We want to make the workers trainers so that they can replicate the training throughout the organisation,” Dutt said.

The training will focus not only on party organisation but also on political and public outreach. Workers are expected to be briefed on the party’s positions on issues such as unemployment, farmers’ concerns, inflation and law and order. They would also be trained to maintain regular contact with voters, identify local issues, and strengthen the party’s presence at the booth level.

SIR as a tool

The Congress is also seeking to use the Election Commission (EC)’s ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls to expand and strengthen the party’s booth network. As many as 19,280 Congress-appointed Booth Level Agents (BLAs) have been involved in the exercise, with the party asking them to monitor voter rolls, ensure eligible voters are not left out and flag discrepancies.

The Congress’s proposed organisational model has similarities with the BJP’s established booth-centric structure in Haryana. The BJP operates through multiple layers, including booth teams, Panna Pramukhs, Shakti Kendra Pramukhs, and mandal and district committees. The Congress is now seeking to build a comparable organisational structure.

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The challenges for the Congress are, however, not limited to organisational revamp. The party continues to grapple with factionalism among its senior leaders, an issue that has repeatedly complicated efforts to strengthen its state unit.

The Congress won just one of Haryana’s 10 Lok Sabha seats, Rohtak, in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. In its aftermath, the party dissolved its organisational units in the state. It subsequently contested the 2014, 2019 and 2024 Lok Sabha and Assembly polls without a fully established organisation.

Congress leaders involved in the current exercise believe a functioning grassroots network could help bridge the gap between the party and the BJP at the constituency level. The 2024 Assembly results are frequently cited in this context: the BJP polled 39.94% of the vote against the Congress’s 39.09% – a difference of just 0.85 percentage points. Yet the BJP won 48 of the state’s 90 Assembly seats as against the Congress’s 37.

The argument within the Congress is that a stronger booth network could help translate its statewide vote share into greater constituency-level gains.

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The larger test, however, is whether the exercise can bring the party’s competing factions onto a common platform.

“In which state and when was there no groupism in Congress? But still Congress has been winning elections,” said a party leader close to Dutt.

Haryana Congress chief Rao Narender Singh said the party was making a concerted effort to rebuild its grassroots network. “We will take along all leaders as part of collective efforts,” he said.

Bid for unity

The effort has also brought several senior Congress leaders together at recent organisational events. Former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, AICC general secretary and Sirsa MP Kumari Selja, AICC general secretary and Rajya Sabha MP Randeep Singh Surjewala and Rohtak MP Deepender Singh Hooda have attended various party events with Dutt.

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At an event in Assandh to mark the birthday of former Congress MLA Shamsher Singh Gogi, former Union minister Birender Singh and his son Brijendra Singh also shared the platform with Dutt and Selja.