The generation-balanced reconstitution has 22 permanent members, 26 permanent invitees and nine special invitees. It has retained almost all seniors, including change seekers Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma, Mukul Wasnik and Jitin Prasada along with younger leaders and new faces.
New Delhi: In a major reshuffle of the party, Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Friday (September 11) removed Ghulam Nabi Azad, Motilal Vora, Ambika Soni, Mallikarjun Kharge as AICC general secretaries, and reconstituted CWC and appointed P. Chidambaram, Randeep Surjewala, Tariq Anwar and Jitendra Singh as its regular members.
Dropping Ghulam Nabi Azad from the post of general secretary, handed former minister Tariq Anwar a double promotion. Azad was the senior-most leader among the group of 23 that had written a letter to Gandhi seeking organisational reforms in the party.
The new members in the Congress Working Committee (CWC), the party’s highest decision making body, will replace Faleiro, Vora, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and Tamradhwaj Sahu.
Rahul Gandhi remains a CWC member and Priyanka Vadra will continue as CWC member-cum-AICC general secretary. P Chidambaram has finally been promoted as a full-fledged CWC member. Digvijaya Singh has returned to CWC, this time as a permanent invitee. Jairam Ramesh and Rajiv Shukla too are in the same category though debutants in CWC.
Gandhi also removed Luizinho Faleiro as AICC general secretaries and formed a special committee to assist her in party matters.
The six-member special committee, formed to assist her in organisational and operational matters, will have AK Antony, Ahmed Patel, Ambika Soni, KC Venugopal, Mukul Wasnik and Randeep Surjewala as its members.
Some of the key Rahul Gandhi aides and loyalist, such as Venugopal and Surjewala, have been nominated to all key committees.
The reshuffle comes in the wake of a section of party leaders writing to Sonia Gandhi seeking organisational reforms in the Congress. The signatories to the missive came in for some sharp criticism at the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting held recently.
Surjewala, Jitendra Singh and Ajay Maken have been appointed as new general secretaries for Karnataka, Assam and Rajasthan, respectively.
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