Congress selects 50 Fellows under Manmohan Singh programme, none from Gujarat

Gujarat is among 11 states that have drawn a blank in the Congress's recently launched Dr Manmohan Singh Fellows Program, a platform to facilitate mid-career professionals interested in entering politics.

Named in honour of the late Dr Manmohan Singh, who transitioned from a distinguished professional life into politics in 1991 and went on to serve as the Prime Minister for a decade between 2004 and 2014, the program was announced by the party in April.

Last week, following a three-month process of screening 1,343 applicants “from across the country,” the Congress inducted 50 Fellows for the program.

None from crucial state

Eight candidates each from Maharashtra and Karnataka made it to the final list of inductees. Delhi came a close second with seven inductees, while the remaining Fellows were chosen from Haryana, Telangana (four each), Punjab (3), Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bengal, Odisha (two each), Uttarakhand, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Meghalaya and Puducherry (one each).

What, however, stood out was that the All India Professionals Congress (AIPC), which has crafted the mentorship program, found no applicant suitable for the Fellowship from Gujarat. It is, after, the state that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi chose as the launch pad of his party’s Sanghathan Srijan Abhiyan (organisation building campaign) around the same time the Manmohan Singh Fellows Program was conceptualised.

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The absence of any ‘mid-career professional’ from Gujarat in the AIPC’s list of individuals the party believes can be groomed for political leadership roles stands out as a glaring omission.

This is particularly significant because Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which hopes to displace the Congress as the principal opponent of the ruling BJP in the 2027 Gujarat Assembly polls, has been aggressively tapping professionals from apolitical backgrounds to distinguish itself from the state’s two legacy political outfits.

Several states missing

Gujarat, of course, isn’t the only state to have gone unrepresented in the Fellowship Program. No inductions have been made from Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Chhattisgarh, and the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman & Diu, Lakshadweep, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands or from any of the northeastern states, barring Meghalaya.

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AIPC chief Praveen Chakravarthy, however, dismissed The Federal’s questions on the lack of representation from these states and UTs, stating that the omission was not for want of applicants but because the party prioritised merit.

'No quota or bias'

“There was no favouritism, no recommendation and no quota,” Chakravarthy said, emphasising that of the 1,343 applications received by the AIPC, party leaders had shortlisted 340 candidates for interviews, which included applicants from the now unrepresented states.

Eventually, the selection panel comprising party leaders Ajay Maken, Pawan Khera, Ajoy Kumar, K Raju, Supriya Shrinate, Alka Lamba and Sachin Rao selected the 50 “most suitable” candidates as the inaugural fellowship program had only this many spots, he added.

Professionals selected for the fellowship include people from sectors as diverse as civil services, academics, AI & data, media, law, marketing, medicine, engineering, banking, NGOs, management and environment, Chakravarthy said. He revealed that 32 selected Fellows had an experience of 10 to 19 years in their respective fields while 12 of them had chosen to make the switch to public life after spending over 20 plus years in their respective professions.

Diversity in representation

While the Fellowship has faltered on equitable representation to various states, it has tried to balance representation from castes, communities, gender and diverse age-groups. Of the 50 professionals selected, 28 Fellows (or 56 percent) belong to the backward castes, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and religious minorities. The list includes 34 men and 16 women.

While 26 Fellows are in the age group of 30-39 years, 20 are aged between 40 and 49 years, and the remaining four are above 50 years of age.

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The AIPC chief said the Fellows would now go through a rigorous program “working in various departments within the party including treasury, communication, social media and data on a rotational basis. They will also be assigned work in the Congress Parliamentary office or attached to work with MPs, state Congress chiefs, and the offices of the Congress president as well as the LoP.”

Some of the selected Fellows who have worked with the United Nations in various capacities will also be assigned to work with former External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid, who was recently appointed chairman of the party’s revamped Foreign Affairs Department.

“These are not short-term programs where fellows come and collect certificates. The Fellows are supposed to work on projects in the party for months to even a year, following which they will also be involved in grassroots activity. The big political issues of today that Rahul (Gandhi) has been raising, be it caste census or vote chori (vote theft), need a specialised skill set,” Chakravarthy.

Fellows share experiences

Shivaji Vithalrao Pitalwad, a 45-year-old primary school teacher, is among the selected Fellows. Hailing from Betmogra village in Maharashtra’s Nanded, Pitalwad is concerned about the plight of backward classes and minorities in the state. As a teacher who joined the service at 21 years of age, Pitalwad said he is dismayed over the discrimination faced by the students from backward classes in education in the rural areas.

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It was Rahul Gandhi’s strident push for socio-economic and political parity for historically oppressed and backward caste groups and marginalised communities, as well as the late Vilasrao Deshmukh’s efforts as the Maharashtra chief minister towards this same end that endeared Pitalwad to the Congress.

Entry route

The Fellowship program, Pitalwad told The Federal, was just the kind of entry route into public life that he had been searching for. He expressed hope that his stint in Congress would also provide him with the political heft and backing to strengthen the campaign in his home state for granting an ST status to his Mahadev Koli community.

Like Pitalwad, Bengaluru-based Jimy Joseph, a communications professional, too, has applied for the Fellowship, hoping that it would give her, “a person with no political background”, a foot in the door for a life in politics.