Rahul wants young turks to fight tough seats
11 Feb 2013 6:24 AM IST
As a part of his plan to revitalise the party, Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi has identified 100 seats including Lucknow, Patna and Amritsar where candidates would be fielded from the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) or the Indian Youth Congress (IYC). Congress has not won these seats for almost three decades now.
A source in the party said Rahul has directed that a list of all seats where the Congress has lost in the past three consecutive polls should be made. Success stories of this experiment which Gandhi carried out in 2009 general elections include his hand-picked choices  Manicka Tagore, Ashok Tanwar and Meenakshi Natarajan. Each of them contested elections against known names. Tagore defeated MDMK chief Vaiko by 15,764 votes after standing from Virudhunagar in Tamil Nadu. Most significantly, Tanwar contested from Sirsa in Haryana and won the seat by defeating his nearest rival Sita Ram of Indian National Lok Dal (INLD). This was big win as Sirsa is the hometown of an old-timer in Haryana politics Chaudhary Om Prakash Chautala. While Natrajan contested from Mandsaur, Madhya Pradesh defeating her BJP opponent Laxmi Narayan Pandey.
A source in the party said Rahul has directed that a list of all seats where the Congress has lost in the past three consecutive polls should be made. Success stories of this experiment which Gandhi carried out in 2009 general elections include his hand-picked choices  Manicka Tagore, Ashok Tanwar and Meenakshi Natarajan. Each of them contested elections against known names. Tagore defeated MDMK chief Vaiko by 15,764 votes after standing from Virudhunagar in Tamil Nadu. Most significantly, Tanwar contested from Sirsa in Haryana and won the seat by defeating his nearest rival Sita Ram of Indian National Lok Dal (INLD). This was big win as Sirsa is the hometown of an old-timer in Haryana politics Chaudhary Om Prakash Chautala. While Natrajan contested from Mandsaur, Madhya Pradesh defeating her BJP opponent Laxmi Narayan Pandey.
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