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Congress, BJP set to revamp party, new faces take charge |
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Following the electoral verdict that has catapulted the Congress to power at the Centre, the party is all set to embark on a mission to revive the organisation. As a beginning, the younger leaders of the new generation are expected to be given charge of building the party so that by the time of the next elections, the Congress can hope to perform better without taking the help of the allies. The Congress has taken note of the fact that it did poorly in populous states like Uttar Pradesh and even in states ruled by it like Punjab and Kerala. The forthcoming Maharashtra assembly poll will show whether the party needs a leadership change. But the Punjab debacle means that the days of Chief Minister Amarinder Singh may be numbered, while in Kerala despite a dismal performance, Chief Minister A.K. Antony may not be immediately replaced as there is no credible alternative. The Karunakaran camp is equally a problematic one and the factional quarrels have resulted in the son of the veteran leader, K. Muraleedharan, being charged with being involved in plotting a murderous assault on rival Congress leaders.
As expected, Sonia Gandhi’s son Rahul will lead a band of young leaders to take the party to greater heights. In all likelihood, Rahul will become a party general secretary. He is likely to take charge of important states like UP, where the popular mood has swung towards the Congress, but the party’s organisation is in a shambles. Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sachin Pilot and Navin Jindal are likely to be appointed AICC secretaries. The new Congress is also likely to be leaner: some posts will be done away with. There are now 33 secretaries, seven general secretaries and 23 Congress Working Committee (CWC) members, apart from four permanent members and 18 special invitees in the CWC. The axe could fall on some secretaries.
The party has taken a conscious policy decision to push youth. Leaders have realised that the electoral success of the new generation gives it a big advantage over the BJP, which has few young MPs. The plan is to groom the young set for important organisational responsibilities, which was the reason why none of them were included in the Manmohan Singh Government.
BJP’s new team
The Bharatiya Janata Party, which suffered a shock defeat in the Lok Sabha election, has got a facelift. BJP president M Venkaiah Naidu has appointed former Union ministers Rajnath Singh and Arun Jaitley as party general secretaries.
Pramod Mahajan, who along with Sanjay Joshi continues to be general secretary in the new team, will prepare the party for the Maharashtra assembly election later this year.
Naidu, who kept the reconstitution of his team in abeyance after taking over as party chief in view of the Lok Sabha election, gave representation to all sections of the society in the reconstituted central office, frontal organisations and national executive, party spokesperson Jaitley said while releasing the list in New Delhi.
Shivraj Singh Chauhan, who was national secretary, is now general secretary. He will also be secretary, parliamentary board and central election committee, a post held by Mahajan.
Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, who was general secretary, is now party vice-president. He will continue to be the party’s spokesperson with additional responsibility of headquarters-in-charge.
Besides Naqvi and Jaitley, former external affairs minister Yashwant Sinha will be the BJP’s spokesperson. First-time member of Parliament from Barmer, Manvendra Singh, will be additional spokesperson. Naidu dropped Ramdas Aggarwal as treasurer and replaced him with Sukumar Nambiar, who had held this post when Jana Krishnamurthy was party president. Another office-bearer who finds himself dropped is vice-president Pyarelal Khandelwal.
Naidu appointed two former chief ministers — Kalyan Singh (Uttar Pradesh) and Babulal Marandi (Jharkhand) — as vice-presidents.
Naidu also appointed two women as office-bearers — former Union minister Jaskaur Meena (vice-president) and Kiran Maheshwari (secretary).
Of the 78 members in the newly constituted national executive, 20 are new and 13 are women. Naidu also made changes in the frontal organisations with Dharmendra Pradhan from Orissa replacing Kishan Reddy as president of the Yuva Morcha. Karuna Shukla, former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s niece, will head the Mahila Morcha.
Former Union minister Faggan Singh Kulaste from Madhya Pradesh will head the Scheduled Tribe Morcha while Ramnath Kovid has been retained as head of the Scheduled Caste Morcha.Annasaheb M K Patil from Maharashtra will be president, Kisan Morcha, while Tanveer Haider Usmani will head the Minorities Morcha.
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