Congress party president Rahul Gandhi formed the first ever CWC- the highest decision-making body, after assuming charge of the party. While empowering himself, he dropped out many eminent Congress veterans out of the list constituting the CWC.
The new Congress Working Committee includes 23 members, 18 permanent invitees, and 10 special invitees.
Congress new CWC lead by Rahul Gandhi pic.twitter.com/XHPHAUABuw
— Narendra nath mishra (@iamnarendranath) July 17, 2018
Among those who are included in the Congress Working Committee are: Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, Dr Manmohan Singh, Motilal Vora, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Mallikarjun Kharge, AK Antony, Ahmed Patel, Ambika Soni, Oommen Chandy, Tarun Gogoi, Siddararnaiah, Anand Sharma, Harish Rawat, Kumari Selja, Mukul Wasnik, Avinash Pande, KC Venugopal, Dipak Babaria, Tamradhwaj Sahu, Raghuveer Meena, Gaikhangarn and Ashok Gehlot.
Deepak Babaria, Jitendra Singh, Gaurav Gogoi, Randeep Surjewala, and Anugrah Narayan Singh are among the young generation leaders appointed as the state in charges.
The heads of five frontal organizations of the party – INTUC, Sewa Dal, Youth Congress, Mahila Congress and NSUI – are part of the special invitees.
The changes, reports said, reflect Gandhi’s intent to expose the next generation of Congress leaders to deliberations in the party’s top panel but at the same time, retain the party veterans whose advice he is known to rely on.
On one hand, the party reportedly accepted that the need to retain the veterans was imperative, while on the other hand, some big-names including veterans like, senior Congress leaders Digvijay Singh, Kamal Nath, Sushil Kumar Shinde, Mohan Prakash and CP Joshi and Janardan Dwivedi were amongst those dropped out from the new list of CWC members.
Other prominent exclusions are Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, who was earlier a permanent invitee to the body, former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, former Himachal chief minister Virbhadra Singh, Oscar Fernandes and Mohsina Kidwai. However, Hooda’s son Deepender Singh has been made a special invitee.
The new inclusions being, Mukul Wasnik, Avinash Pande, KC Venugopal, Dipak Babaria, Tamradhwaj Sahu, Gaikhangam and Ashok Gehlot, who was also made party general secretaries.
The committee was dissolved prior to the election of the Congress president and the earlier panel was transformed into a steering committee till the party’s plenary session that ratified Rahul’s appointment as the party’s big boss, and concluded in March.
Interestingly, Rahul, who claims to stand for the women reservation bill, that firstly the Congress couldn’t pass for decades, has included only 7 women in the CWC. One out of the six being his mother.
The first meeting with the extended CWC will be held on 22nd July, where the new committee will discuss the parties future strategies.
