Keen on expanding its social base beyond Central Travancore, the Kerala Congress (M) is reaching out to different sections of society by launching seven new party forums.
A decision to float the new party forums, which forms part of its Mission 2030, was made at the first meeting of the KC(M) State secretariat here on Tuesday. The meeting, presided over by KC(M) chairman Jose K. Mani, entrusted its State-level office-bearers with the additional responsibility of constituting the outfits, besides reinvigorating the existing feeder organisations.
The soon-to-be-launched organisations will include special forums for children and their parents, fishermen, artists and sportspersons. A separate forum to improve the communication skills of party workers and its elected representatives too has been mooted.
The platform for schoolchildren, meanwhile, will have no political affiliations and instead will conduct training to improve various skills of children, exhibitions, and parenting programmes.
The latest move, according to him, forms part of a strategy nurtured by the revamped KC(M) to expand continuously by networking with different sections of society and thus get out of the stagnation trap that Kerala Congress parties are currently in.
“Ever since its association with the Left Democratic Front, the KC(M) has been making a relentless bid not to restrict itself to the traditional social coalition of Catholic and upper-caste Hindus in Central Travancore and instead focussing sharply on sections that will add to its core voter base,” he pointed out.
About a month ago, the party also completed a year-long process to rehaul itself on a semi-cadre line from a mass-based structure and floated a seven-member political affairs committee as the party’s highest decision-making body.
Meanwhile, Mr. Mani unleashed a scathing attack on Governor Arif Mohammed Khan while addressing the meeting. Accusing the Governor of attempting to act as a parallel Opposition leader to the government , Mr. Mani warned against any attempts by Mr. Khan to create an administrative paralysis in the State.
The KC(M) secretariat decided to conduct a Statewide anti-drug campaign starting from November 14. It also decided to submit a memorandum to the Chief Minister to initiate urgent steps to raise the base price of natural rubber to ₹250 under its price stabilisation scheme.
