Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi seems to have taken his new role as the party’s election coordination committee chief quite seriously. Within days of being appointed in the new post, the Amethi MP is learnt to have sent out a crack team of 54 "observers" to fan out across the country and give him inputs and feedbacks.

The observers have reportedly been given a clear brief: study the demographic profile of 10 constituencies each and report back to the poll committee on strengths and weaknesses of the party in each constituency, study the opposition MPs, and identify ‘winning candidates’ for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
While names of the observers appointed for the “top secret exercise” could not be known, an insider said not all of them are professionals, adding that most are MPs (both present and former), MLAs, MLCs and Youth Congress leaders.

Gandhi’s plan is to use the grassroots-level feedback from these observers to select possible Congress candidates in advance — at least three to six months before the elections are due, to give them enough time to nurse their constituencies. This, incidentally, was one of the recommendations of a committee headed by defence minister AK Antony, set up by Congress president Sonia Gandhi in 1999 after the Vajpayee government had won a second mandate.

According to sources, Rahul Gandhi was “shocked” to note that the party had buried two reports prepared by the Antony-led committee on Congress’s poll mismanagement. The second report reportedly came earlier this year, after the party's rout in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Goa assembly elections.
Sources said Gandhi feels it is essential to implement the corrective steps suggested by the two panels if the Congress-led UPA coalition is to score a hat-trick and form a government at the Centre after the next general elections.

Following the party's poor show in the assembly polls earlier this year, the Antony-led three-member panel had suggested that the process for screening candidates should be tightened and no relatives of party leaders should be given tickets till their winning ability is confirmed.
But much to Gandhi’s chagrin, the panel also found errors in the new style of campaign he heralded in Uttar Pradesh and recommended that the party go back to its "traditional ways” of pre-poll canvassing.

If the two reports penned by Antony are to be implemented, as Gandhi feels is necessary, the party will not project any leader as the prime ministerial candidate before Lok Sabha polls and chief minister ahead of assembly elections, barring states that already have Congress chief ministers.