As Congress look to introduce reforms, senior resist age cap

New Delhi, May 18: With the Congress attempting to make sweeping changes in a bid to revive itself, several veterans in the party have stalled a key plan to impose an age cap for elections that could have further squeezed their political space, news reports said.

Several reforms such as youth quota and new panels are likely to be implemented only after the organisational elections are held in August a Hindustan Times report said.

Congress general secretary Ajay Maken said that the Congress president's post will be exempt from all new steps, including fixing an office bearer's tenure to five years. "It's nav sankalp (new resolve) as well as dhrir sankalp (firm resolve) for us," Maken said.

The report said that it was Congress general secretary Mukul Wasnik who suggested an age cap of 70 years for fighting elections and also taking part in the organisational polls. The proposal also came with other suggestions such as reserving half of all party posts for leaders under the age of 50.

Senior leaders have however resisted the age cap while arguing that it cannot go together with the quota.

The leaders argued that there is no point in having both the quota and the cap. There is need for the seniors to be present so that they can guide the juniors, they argued. During the deliberations many leaders felt that the age cap would not maintain the balance between youth and experience in the party.