The Congress has long battled the perception that its workers surface on the ground only in the run-up to elections and disappear thereafter. In Jharkhand, the All India Congress Committee (AICC) in-charge, K. Raju, is attempting to challenge that narrative through an organisational model aimed at sustained, year-round engagement.
Mr. Raju, a bureaucrat-turned-politician, has drawn up a year-long calendar of activities involving party workers and leaders across nearly 4,350 gram panchayats in the State.
“Over the last 10 months, since I was given the responsibility as AICC in-charge, my focus has been on taking the Congress organisation to the grassroots and making it active at the village level,” Mr. Raju said in an interaction with The Hindu.
At the grassroots, Gram Panchayat Congress Committees — each comprising 12 members representing different communities —have been constituted after consultations in every panchayat. Each member has been issued a formal appointment order, designed to be framed and displayed at home. The committees are mandated to meet once every month on pre-scheduled dates.
“The idea is simple: villagers should know that on a particular day every month, the Congress committee meets, and that they can approach it with their grievances and issues. This helps break the perception that the Congress becomes visible only during elections,” Mr. Raju said, adding that the aim was to make the party “visible on a daily basis — listening, working, and responding.”
According to him, the process has been institutionalised across all 4,350 gram panchayats and more than 1,000 municipal wards. The committees are guided on identifying local issues and working on them consistently.
Mandal committees
Beyond the village level, mandal committees — covering five to 10 panchayats — have been formed, above which are 312 Block Congress Committees. Each block committee consists of 12 members, including a president, two vice-presidents, and nine general secretaries, and is tasked with monitoring the functioning of the organisation at the grassroots.
“Meeting dates at all levels — panchayat, mandal, block and district — have been standardised and fixed for the entire year. This allows leaders to plan visits in advance and enables the public to engage consistently, especially at the gram panchayat level, where participation is encouraged,” Mr. Raju explained.
With the organisational structure in place, the Congress is now taking up issues that resonate with local communities. The first is the effective implementation of the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 (PESA), which seeks to strengthen panchayati raj institutions while protecting tribal customs and traditions.
“Jharkhand has nearly 2,000 Scheduled Areas or tribal villages, but shockingly, for 25 years the State did not frame rules under PESA. After consultations with tribal activists, traditional gram sabha leaders, party colleagues and the government, the rules were finally notified on January 2. Our volunteers are now training gram sabhas on implementing the Act on the ground,” Mr. Raju said.
Another issue taken up by village-level committees is the party’s ongoing protests against the proposed replacement of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) with the Vikshit Bharat–Guarantee for Rozgar Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) or VB-GRAM G.
“We are training Gram Panchayat Congress Committees to hold monthly dialogues with MGNREGA workers — discussing their rights, wages, and the impact on distress migration, and contrasting this with the proposed alternative [VB G RAM G],” he said.
After participating in the party’s campaign against alleged “vote chori” (vote theft), the Jharkhand Congress is now preparing to train 30,000 booth-level agents to handle a possible Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in the State.
“Our aim is clear: not a single genuine voter should be disenfranchised. We are acutely aware that documentation requirements disproportionately affect tribal and migrant populations. That is why we are pre-empting the process through training and vigilance,” Mr. Raju said.
Published – January 26, 2026 07:39 pm IST
