Congress needs to net other party leaders, feel insiders

On Sunday, TNCC chief Su Thirunavukkarasar and former TNCC chief KV Thangkabalu welcomed cadre and the few functionaries of its splinter group the TMC, the AIADMK and the DMDK, altogether numbering over 50 as they ‘joined’ the state Congress. What the party got wrong was that the number of newcomers was abysmally low by the standards of Tamil Nadu politics, which sees not less than several hundreds and in most cases cadre changing loyalties only in thousands. 

Worse, the state Congress unit hardly had any noteworthy name even in the small lot of 50 plus who joined recently. In the recent decades, Tamil Nadu Congress, but for stars like Khushbu and Nagma, has not drawn any big leaders from the pool of regional parties. Among its big failures was an earlier attempt to woo Mersal star Vijay to the Congress party. 

All that the managers of Rahul Gandhi managed then was a brief rendezvous between their boss and the actor. Even a few Congress insiders admitted that the party should think beyond roping in a few block secretaries if it were serious in strengthening the party.