Kapil Sibal's campaign poster for the Lok Sabha polls
Rahul Gandhi's plan to hold US-style primaries to select Congress candidates for the national election, due by May, has witnessed a 180 degree turn within days.
Last week, the Congress was forced to drop the seats of two ministers, Kapil Sibal and Krishna Tirath, from the list of primaries, reportedly after meeting with some resistance. Now everyone wants to volunteer and the number of seats to hold primaries by February 16 may go up.
"All seven Delhi Congress MPs volunteer to hold primaries in their constituency. Very soon the number and constituencies would be announced!" tweeted Ajay Maken, who holds the New Delhi constituency, on Monday.
The Delhi MPs are meeting to choose two seats. Mr Maken says he was the first to volunteer his constituency for the process to be tested in at least 16 constituencies across the country. Gurudas Kamath, the MP from Mumbai North-West in Maharashtra, has also offered his seat.
Sources said Mr Gandhi had wanted seats held by ministers and party MPs to be thrown open to send out a stronger message of transparency. But there were objections within, which now seem to have taken a back seat in the interest of good form.
After Congress' poor show in Delhi and three other states that went to polls in November-December, the Congress number two had promised to draw lessons from the AAP's success and "change the party in ways you can't imagine."
Sources say if the experiment works, Mr Gandhi has plans to replicate it for the selection of general secretaries and other office bearers of the party, after the polls.