Veteran Congress leader Ashok Gehlot on Tuesday said more than 50 per cent of the party tickets for the upcoming local body polls in the state should be given to Gen-Z and young candidates, asserting that it is time to recognise the ongoing generational change in the country.
Speaking to reporters after discussions on the Congress’s preparations for the civic polls, the former Rajasthan chief minister said tickets should be distributed strictly on the basis of merit and ground-level feedback and not on recommendations, even if they come from senior leaders like him. On ticket distribution, he said the observers sent by the Pradesh Congress Committee should be given full authority to assess local conditions and select candidates on merit. The former chief minister said even recommendations made by him should not influence candidate selection.
He alleged that the present government has discontinued the urban-employment initiative and claimed that several development projects involving national and international funding have also been stalled. “The government is not paying attention to villages that have now come under development authorities. Gehlot said his government had distributed around 12 lakh land-lease deeds and launched an urban-employment-guarantee scheme on the lines of the MGNREGA .
This department and ministry are extremely important for cities,” Gehlot said. He said discussions were held at the meeting to ensure proper ticket distribution and appealed to party MLAs, MPs, district and block Congress committees and grassroots-level workers to work together for the local body polls.
