By IANS
New Delhi : In her bid to give wide representation to various sections and infuse new blood without disturbing the old order, Congress President Sonia Gandhi Monday expanded the number of All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretaries from the traditional eight to 11.
The focus of the day was on young MP Rahul Gandhi, the party chief’s son, who was inducted as a party general secretary and full-fledged member of the Congress Working Committee (CWC).
But the Congress president made many other notable additions too, without really taking out anybody.
So we have Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office Prithviraj Chavan, the young MP from Maharashtra who is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), inducted as an AICC general secretary and again a full-fledged member of the CWC.
Another is Kishore Chandra Deo, the man who got elected to the Lok Sabha first time in 1977 on a Congress ticket, when late prime minister Indira Gandhi as well as the party was routed. He has been selected to work for the party as a general secretary and also as a regular member of the CWC.
Senior Congress leader from Uttar Pradesh Mohsina Kidwai has been brought back as general secretary as well as CWC member after a short break.
Margaret Alva, Digvijay Singh, Ashok Gehlot, Janardhan Dwivedi, B.K. Hari Prasad, Mukul Wasnik and V. Narayansamy, have remained largely untouched by the reshuffle, except for slight changes in their state charges.
Gehlot, who was looking after Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Seva Dal, will now only handle Delhi and Seva Dal, as Uttar Pradesh goes to Digvijay Singh who will also handle publicity and publications for the party.
Margaret Alva will continue with the charge of Maharashtra but not of Goa. She will now also handle Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland.
Goa, along with Gujarat, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu will be under the charge of Hari Prasad.
Deo will look after Bihar and programme coordination.
Kidwai will be in charge of Kerala, Lakshadweep, West Bengal, Andaman and Nicobar and the Mahila Congress.
Chavan has been assigned Karnataka, Jammu and Kashmir, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Tripura, while Narayansamy will look after Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
Wasnik, member of the old team, will look after Rajasthan.
Motilal Vora continues to hold the purse strings of the party in his capacity as the treasurer and he will also look after the administration, the AICC said in an announcement.
Union Minister of State for Urban Development Ajay Maken has been inducted as a permanent invitee to the CWC and given charge of Jharkhand and Orissa. R.K. Dhawan has also returned to the CWC as a permanent invitee and will look after Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
Another young man brought into the new team is the first-time MP from Rajahmundry in Andhra Pradesh, Aruna Kumar. He too has been inducted as a special invitee into the CWC and given charge of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.
Besides this, Urmila Singh is the new female face in the CWC. Veteran G. Venkataswamy too has returned to the CWC. Among permanent invitees are Veerappa Moily, Ajit Jogi, Karan Singh, C.K. Jaffer Sharief and N. Janardhan Reddy.
Moily will also head the media cell.
The notables among special invitees in the CWC are Anil Shastri, Jyotiraditya Scindia and Jagmeet Singh Brar.
Also, Rajinder Kaur Bhattal has returned as president of the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC), with Mohinder Singh Kaypee as working president. C.P. Joshi is named Rajasthan unit president and Parasram Mordia as its working president.
Uttar Pradesh unit president Salman Khursheed has been replaced by Rita Bahuguna, while the Uttarakhand unit will be headed by Yashpal Arya.