Suspended Congress leader Sanjay Jha on Saturday took a dig at the party after the Congress Working Committee (CWC) was rejigged on Friday. Likening the grand-old party to the sinking Titanic, Jha took to Twitter and wrote, "Last night the deck chairs on the Titanic were rearranged."
On Friday, in a major organisational reshuffle, Congress President Sonia Gandhi dropped several veteran leaders including Ghulam Nabi Azad, Motilal Vora, Ambika Soni, Mallikarjun Kharge as AICC general secretaries, and appointed P Chidambaram, Randeep Surjewala, Tariq Anwar and Jitendra Singh as its regular members.
"The party wholeheartedly appreciates the contributions of outgoing General Secretaries, i.e. Shri. Ghulam Nabi Azad, Shri Motilal Vora, Smt. Ambika Soni, Shri Mallikarjun Kharge and Shri. Luizinho Faleiro. The party also wholeheartedly appreciates the contributions of outgoing In-Charges, i.e. Shri Anugrah Narayan Singh, Smt. Asha Kumari, Shri Gaurav Gogoi and Dr. Ram Chandra Khuntia," read a notice.
Gandhi also formed a six-member special committee to assist her in organisational matters, apart from reconstituting the Central Election Authority (CEA) of AICC with Madhusudan Mistry as its chairman, Rajesh Misra, Krishna Byre Gowda, S Jothimani and Arvinder Singh Lovely as its members. The CEA will elect the new Congress president.
Meanwhile, the rejig is said to be a victory for 'Team Rahul' as party leaders Randeep Surjewala and Jitendra Singh, who considered loyalists of Rahul Gandhi, are now full members of the CWC - the highest decision-making body of the party.
Other leaders who are relatively young and considered part of 'Team Rahul' in extended CWC include Manickam Tagore, Sushmita Dev, Kuldeep Bishnoi, Jitin Prasada, Shaktisinh Gohil, Devender Yadav, RPN Singh, Dinesh Gundu Rao, Sachin Rao, Rajeev Satav, Lalji Desai, Deepender Hooda, Vivek Bansal, Neeraj Kundan and BV Srinivas.
The CWC members are - Sonia Gandhi, Dr Manmohan Singh, Rahul Gandhi, AK Antony, Ahmed Patel, Ambika Soni, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma, Harish Rawat, KC Venugopal, Mallikarjun Kharge, Mukul Wasnik, Oommen Chandy, Ajay Maken, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, P Chidambaram, Jitendra Singh, Tariq Anwar, Randeep Singh Surlewala, Gaikhangam, Raghuveer Singh Meena and Tarun Gogoi.
Permanent invitees are - Digvijaya Singh, Meira Kumar, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, Jairam Ramesh, Salman Khurshid, Avinash Pandey, KH Muniyappa, Pramod Tiwari, Tariq Hameed Karra, Pawan Kumar Bansal, Rajan Patil, PL Punia, RPN Singh, Shakti Singh Gohil, Rajeev Satav, Rajeev Shukla, Jitin Prasada, Dinesh Gundu Rao, Manickam Tagore, Chellakumar, HK Patil, Devendra Yadav, Vivek Bansal, Manish Chatrath, Bhakta Charan Das and Kuljit Singh Nagra.
The Special invitees to the working committee are - Deepender Hooda, Kuldeep Bishnoi, Chinta Mohan, Sachin Rao, Sushmita Dev, Lalji Desai, G Sanjeeva Reddy, Sachin Rao, Neeraj Kundan and BV Srinivas.
(With inputs from ANI and PTI)
