The Hindu : Sonia injects fresh blood into CWC

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Tuesday, Apr 23, 2002

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National

Sonia injects fresh blood into CWC

By Javed M. Ansari

NEW DELHI APRIL 22. The Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, today appointed Ambica Soni and Ahmad Patel as the party's political secretaries, and dropped Mahavir Prasad as the general secretary. This is the second time in 15 months that Ms. Gandhi has gone in for an organisational reshuffle. Though the changes are not as wide-ranging as the previous ones, they are significant.

Ms. Soni has clearly emerged as Ms. Gandhi's trusted aide and has been entrusted with important party work. Apart from being political secretary, she is in charge of the Congress president's office, the media department, and the party affairs in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Kerala and Rajasthan. Mr. Patel had been parliamentary secretary to Rajiv Gandhi in 1985.

Ms. Gandhi has made some changes in the Congress Working Committee (CWC) to make it broad-based and representative by infusing fresh blood. All her party Chief Ministers have been made permanent invitees to the CWC, along with the former Orissa Chief Minister, J.B. Patnaik, and the former Union Home Minister, S.B. Chavan. Besides, Shivraj Patil, Deputy Leader of the party in the Lok Sabha, and Vyalar Ravi, former Rajya Sabha MP from Kerala, have been inducted into the CWC as ordinary members.

The 24-member CWC had four vacancies, and with the appointment of Mr. Patil and Mr. Ravi the number of has now gone up to 22, with two vacancies remaining. The number of special invitees will also go up from seven to nine with the induction of the former UPCC president, Salman Khurshid, and Omen Deori, a former Rajya Sabha MP from the northeast.

The axing of Mr. Prasad for "gross underperformance" has been very much on the cards, and has been replaced by Mukul Wasnik. The attempt clearly is to project Mr. Wasnik as the party's credible young Dalit face. A former Youth Congress chief, he has been put in charge of front organisations such as the Youth Congress, the Mahila Congress and the NSUI. Mr. Ravi will handle Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka. Ramesh Chennithala will continue to be in charge of Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry.

Besides being the party treasurer, Motilal Vora will look after the AICC administration, Uttar Pradesh and Uttaranchal, the two States that were under the care of Ghulam Nabi Azad as general secretary. Mohsina Kidwai will look after Chandigarh, Punjab and Himachal, while Kamal Nath will take care of Delhi, Orissa, West Bengal and Gujarat. Oscar Fernandes will continue to look after the AICC sessions, party meetings and the work related to organisational polls. Mani Shanker Aiyer will hold independent charge of the northeast.

The decision to make all the Congress Chief Ministers permanent invitees of the CWC is being viewed as an attempt to broad-base the representation in the apex body, besides involving them in the decision-making process. Jaipal Reddy has been made an ex-officio invitee to the CWC by the virtue of being the party's chief spokesman.

Two of the sacked Ministers of the Delhi Government, Krishna Tirath and Pervez Hashmi, have been accommodated as secretaries in the AICC along with Iqbal Singh of Punjab. They replace Omen Doeri who has been promoted to the CWC, and Sudha Joshi and Bhuveneshwar Kalita who have been elected to the Assemblies.

The media department as well as the editorial board of the in-house magazine `Sandesh' have also been recast. While Ms. Soni will continue to be the chairperson of the media department, Abhishek Singhvi, Supreme Court lawyer, has been added to the party's list of spokespersons, while Mr. Azad, Priyoranjan Dasmunshi, Suresh Pachouri, Eduardo Falerio and Prabha Thakur, newly-elected Rajya Sabha MP, have been added to the media committee.

Anil Shastri has been appointed editor of `Sandesh' and while Natwar Singh is chairperson of its editorial board. The other members of the editorial board are Ajit Jogi, Mani Shankar Aiyer, Salman Khursheed and Sarbjeet Singh. The Lok Sabha MP, Renuka Chaudhury, has been appointed co-chairperson of the Kisan and Khet Mazdoor Cell.

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