VCK set for major revamp

TIRUCHY: The Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK), in its first general council meeting on Friday after the Assembly election debacle, resolved to totally revamp the organisation without changing its chosen path of social engineering giving space to non-Dalits and minorities in the organisation.The party will continue to broad base its organisation without compromising its voice for Dalit empowerment, party spokesperson Vanniarasu said. The major contrast between the social engineering strategy successfully implemented by the BSP in UP and the VCK is that there is no mention of providing key positions to upper castes.However, the party leadership will resort to nominations for all posts, including State-level functionaries, and applications should be submitted to the party leadership within January 31. The re-organisation of the party will be completed within February. The party has two minority leaders at the top with Sindhanai Selvan as one of the general secretaries and Mohamad Yusuf as treasurer. The party already has a woman representative, Kavitha Sampath, as deputy general secretary belonging to the Vanniyar community. Going by the dissenting voices from the lower level cadre who complained against many of the top functionaries, Thirumavalavan has a tough task ahead in nominating functionaries within a short period to the total satisfaction of party workers. Besides, expanding the social engineering to the district and village levels will prove to be a daunting task for the leadership.Functionaries from the grassroots level raised several charges and there were allegations against a few State-level leaders too. The saving grace is that there was no complaint against Thirumavalavan, showing that he continued to be the undisputed leader enjoying the total support of the party cadre despite poll debacles.The party is expected to move to the next phase only after the completion of the organisational exercise.