Nagpur Congress turns to QR code donations to fund party work
Nagpur Congress has started crowdfunding via QR codes to reduce its dependence on wealthy leaders for running the party.
The Nagpur City Congress Committee has adopted a new method to run the party organisation and cover its monthly expenses. Money will now be raised through crowdfunding, meaning contributions collected from ordinary people and party workers. The decision was taken to reduce the party's dependence on a few wealthy leaders, who until now bore the cost of the party's day-to-day work and programmes.
Under the plan, city Congress office-bearers will have to give a fixed amount to the party every month. The party has also said it expects workers and citizens who believe in the Congress ideology to voluntarily donate money every month.
To raise funds, special QR codes have been put up at several places in Nagpur, including the party headquarters, Devadiya Congress Bhavan. In addition, crowdfunding is being collected through QR codes even from people who come to meet Nagpur City Congress president Praful Gudadhe Patil.
As part of the Congress's organisational rebuilding drive, the party leadership, at a training programme for city and district presidents held in Nashik, had advised office-bearers to seek help from party workers and citizens who believe in the Congress ideology to meet the party's expenses going forward.
City Congress president Praful Gudadhe Patil said the idea of crowdfunding is not new for the Congress. He said Mahatma Gandhi himself had set up the Tilak Swaraj Fund at the Congress session held in Nagpur in 1920. Praful Gudadhe Patil said, "In the intervening period, the Congress had forgotten Mahatma Gandhi's idea of public participation. We are deciding the party's future course based on this old idea."
Mahatma Gandhi had set up the Tilak Swaraj Fund, named after Lokmanya Tilak, at the Nagpur session held between 26 and 31 December 1920. At the Nagpur session held after Tilak's death on 1 August 1920, the party had raised lakhs of rupees for the freedom struggle through similar crowdfunding. The party had later given up this old idea of crowdfunding some years ago.
Recently, at a training programme for Congress district presidents in Nashik, the party leadership again drew the attention of district presidents to this idea of crowdfunding. Following this, the first such crowdfunding experiment has begun in Nagpur. It is being said that the money collected will be presented before workers every month.
