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Congress reshuffle : Sonia recasts team |
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Congress president, Sonia Gandhi’s new-look team blends experience with youth and gives adequate representation to different regions, castes and women. She recast her team by carrying out a reshuffle of the All-India Congress Committee. She has also inducted eight new members into the Congress Working Committee (CWC) including former Chief Ministers Ashok Gehlot of Rajasthan and Digvijay Singh of Madhya Pradesh.
Senior leader M.L. Fotedar staged a comeback, while newcomers to the policy-making body CWC include Janardhan Dwivedi, Margaret Alva, Salman Khursheed and Satyavrat Chaturvedi. The last four join the Working Committee by virtue of their appointment as the new general secretaries along with Gehlot, Digvijay Singh, Ambika Soni and Mukul Wasnik. There are five women in the CWC.
Prominent among those who have been dropped from the CWC are the Uttaranchal Chief Minister, Narayan Dutt Tiwari, senior Kerala leader K. Karunakaran who ceases to be a permanent invitee, Meira Kumar, Kamal Nath, R.K. Dhawan and Vayalar Ravi, who finds his name deleted from the list of eight general secretaries.
The party appears to have done away with the practice of having Chief Ministers as permanent invitees even though the list in the category was expanded to 13. The former Chief Ministers Ajit Jogi, N. Janardhana Reddy, Madhavsinh Solanki, Ram Naresh Yadav, S.M. Krishna and Lalthanhawla, find a place. The 12 special invitees to the CWC include Chinta Mohan, Jyotiraditya Scindia, T. Subbirami Reddy, Krishna Tirath and Wasim Ahmed.
Ms. Soni and Wasnik are the only two survivors of the previous team of general secretaries, with Sonia Gandhi dropping Ravi, Mohsina Kidwai, Dhawan, and Nath. Ravi is being tipped to be the party nominee for the post of Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairperson, while Nath is a Minister in the Union Cabinet.
Announcing the reshuffle at a press conference, Ms. Soni said the challenge was to synergise youth and experience. However, she said, the Congress MP, Rahul Gandhi, whose name does not figure in the list of office-bearers has preferred to work for the party without taking any post. With the reshuffle, Ms. Soni said all the departments and cells in the AICC stood dissolved. The process of organisational polls was on and currently the party was engaged in enrollment of members. The new team, which continues till the organisational polls, was necessary since many of the previous members had joined the Manmohan Singh-led United Progressive Alliance Government.
Ahmed Patel continues to be the political secretary to the Congress president and in charge of the party’s affairs in Kerala, while Moti Lal Vora remains the party treasurer. Ms. Soni would be in charge of the Congress president’s office, the CWC and AICC meetings and also the States of Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh.
Among the other general secretaries, Ashok Gehlot would be in charge of all frontal organisations, Digvijay Singh in charge of Andhra Pradesh, Assam and Orissa, Margaret Alva of Maharashtra, Goa, Daman and Diu, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Lakshadweep, Mukul Wasnik of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, Salman Khursheed of Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry, West Bengal, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Satyavrat Chaturvedi in charge of Uttar Pradesh and Janardhan Dwivedi in charge of Haryana and Chandigarh, besides the party’s publicity and organisation.
The list of general secretaries shows that the second generation of leadership has been handed over the organisational task. Ramesh Chennithala would be in charge of party work in the north-eastern States and Harikesh Bahadur of Bihar and Jharkhand. Vilasrao Deshmukh continues to be in charge of party affairs in Karnataka while the Defence Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, has been given additional charge of Punjab, a State he handled earlier as general secretary.
The former Information and Broadcasting Minister and party spokesperson, Girija Vyas, will be the new chairperson of the media department with Anand Sharma, Abhishek Singhvi and Jayanti Natarajan as spokespersons. Senior leader Devendranath Dwivedi and the Andhra Pradesh MP, Pallam Raju, would be in charge of training and policy planning and coordination. Vibhakar Shastri would be the secretary.
The Congress president has appointed 25 secretaries including MPs Ajay Maken, B.K. Hari Prasad, Bharat Solanki and K.B. Krishnamurthy, Youth Congress chief, Randeep Surejwala, and MLAs R.P.N. Singh, Jaikumar and Jaikishen. Tom Vadakkan has been elevated from his earlier position as media secretary.
Rahul Gandhi is credited with the opinion that more young politicians need to be in charge. “Under 40” is where he pegs “young”. But the party led by his mother and now in power, has other ideas. “Fifty and around 50 is relatively young for being member of the highest body of the party,” said senior leader Ambika Soni while announcing an organisational reshuffle. The youth brigade may be much celebrated, but the Congress bigwigs would still like to err on the side of experience. The new faces are old - and predictable.
Between Rahul’s 40 and Soni’s 50 is a generation gap. Clearly the party is not yet in sync with Gen X imperatives. So in the much-awaited organisational reshuffle of the party, very few young ones find a place. That includes Rahul Gandhi, who many expected would be made general secretary. That scotches for the time being all speculation that Rahul would tread his father’s path in the succession plan. Rajiv Gandhi had been groomed for the top party slot and Prime Ministership by being made general secretary. Many expected Rahul to be given a similar charge, especially after the Gandhi scion was not picked for minister.
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