Friday, 17 May, 2024
By: Yash Gupte
The Election Commission of India (ECI) served a notice to the YSR Congress party in Andhra Pradesh on Wednesday after a complaint was lodged by party’s rebel parliamentarian Kanumuru Raghu Ramakrishna Raju on July 11.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) served a notice to the YSR Congress party in Andhra Pradesh on Wednesday after a complaint was lodged by party’s rebel parliamentarian Kanumuru Raghu Ramakrishna Raju on July 11. The Election Commission’s notice came amid the media reports stating that YS Jagan Mohan Reddy had been appointed as the lifetime president of the YSRCP. The commission directed the party to make a “clear and categorical public announcement” in order to avoid the spread of any rumors among the public and other political parties.
The ECI said in its order said that, “it rejects any attempt or even a hint of any organizational post being of permanent nature, being inherently anti-democracy. Any action which denies the periodicity of elections is in complete violation of the extant instructions of the Commission.” In a reply to the Election Commission’s order, the Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP) said that it has launched an internal enquiry into the matter upon which the EC asked the party to conclude the internal enquiry at the earliest.
The rebel parliamentarian alleged that the party has violated the provisions of Section 29(A) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, by passing a resolution electing YS Jagan Mohan Reddy as the permanent president of the party. Reddy was elected as the party's lifetime president during the YSRCP plenary held in Guntur on July 8 and 9. Following the filing of 22 sets of nominations on July 8, the party unanimously chose Jagan Mohan Reddy as its life president as there was no other nomination, according to party general secretary V Vijay Sai Reddy's statement during the plenary. Taking the recent developments in the YSRCP into consideration, India Tracker takes a look at the longest serving presidents of the political parties in India.
As the accompanying chart shows, N Chandrababu Naidu holds the distinction of being the president of longest serving president of a political party. The former chief minister of Andhra Pradesh took over as the president of Telgu Desam Party in 1995 following a revolt against NT Rama Rao. He is the head of TDP since then. Similarly, Sharad Pawar, who formed the Nationalist Congress Party in 1999 has been the president of it since its inception.
In 2003, Mayawati, took over the presidentship of Bahujan Samaj Party which was founded by her mentor Kanshi Ram. She has been elected as the head of the party thrice since then. Mamata Banerjee too has been the chairperson of Trinamool Congress since 1998.
Talking about national parties, Sonia Gandhi took over the presidentship of Congress in 1998 from Sitaram Kesari. She handed over the presidentship to her son Rahul Gandhi in 2017. With this, she become the longest serving president of the grand old party. After party's disastrous performance in 2019 Loksabha election, Rahul resigned as the Congress chief and she was again elected as party's president.
The election commission was right when it called any organisational posts being of permanent nature being inherently anti-democratic. Such long tenures goes against the spirit of democracy. It is important that political parties ensures democracy and freedom within their organisational structure.
