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BEFORE LEAVING FOR ABROAD, SONIA REJIGS AICC, DROPS AZAD & AMBIKA AS GEN SECYS

Congress interim president appoints nine new general secretaries; Rahul too will miss Parliament’s monsoon session as he will accompany Sonia Gandhi to the Netherlands for her check-up and treatment.

Before flying out to the Netherlands, Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi on Friday reshuffled the entire AICC organisation and named nine new general secretaries. She has also reconstituted the Congress Working Committee (CWC) and Central Election Authority of the party.

Sonia Gandhi has reshuffled the team drastically before leaving for the Netherlands on Saturday, where she is going for her checkup and treatment. Her son Rahul Gandhi is also accompanying her on the foreign visit. Both Sonia and Rahul will not be attending the monsoon session of Parliament. The Daily Guardian had earlier reported that a big AICC reshuffle is on the cards, and dissenters’ wings will be clipped.

With an objective to revamp the organisation, Sonia Gandhi rejigged her team in the Congress. Senior Congress leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad, Ambika Soni, Motilal Vora, Luizinho Falerio and Mallikarjun Kharge were dropped from the list of general secretaries.

Jitin Prasad has been made incharge of the party in poll-bound West Bengal. Madhusudan Mistry, Rajesh Mishra, Krishna Byre Gowda, S. Jothimani and Arvinder Singh Lovely were appointed members of the Central Election Authority. Rejigging of CEA assumes significance in the light of the organisational elections next year.

Congress leaders Randeep Singh Surjewala, Jitendra Singh and Ajay Maken were appointed as new general secretaries and in charge of Karnataka, Assam and Rajasthan respectively.

Former Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat has been named the general secretary and in charge of party affairs in Punjab.

Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, among the dissenters who had written to Sonia Gandhi seeking changes in the party setup, has been dropped as AICC general secretary. Vivek Bansal has been given the charge of Haryana.

Sonia Gandhi also constituted a six-member special committee to assist her in organisational and operational matters.

A.K. Antony, Ahmed Patel, Ambika Soni, K.C. Venugopal, Mukul Wasnik, Randeep Surjwala were appointed as members of this panel. During the last meeting of Congress Working Committee (CWC) held on 24 August, it was decided that a committee would be set up to assist Sonia Gandhi to look into the issues raised in the letter by 23 leaders, who called for sweeping reforms within the Congress.

Former Union minister Pawan Kumar Bansal has been made AICC in charge of administration, replacing Motilal Vora.

Former Haryana MLA and AICC media in-charge Randeep With the by-elections for the 27 Assembly seats in Madhya Pradesh likely to be delayed beyond October, two key ministers of Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s cabinet, Tulsi Silawat and Govind Singh Rajput, are at the risk of losing their posts. Both the leaders had deserted the Congress and joined the BJP along with Jyotiraditya Scindia.

Twenty-two Congress MLAs had also joined the BJP then leading to the fall of the 15-month old Kamal Nath government in Madhya Pradesh. But now, with the Election Commission keeping the situation dicey by not announcing the poll schedule apparently due to corona pandemic, the Scindia camp is heavily disappointed and worried.

The two staunch supporters of Scindia, Govind Singh Rajput and Tulsi Silavat are on the verge of losing the ministerial posts if they are not elected to the Assembly in the month of October. Indications are such that by-elections could be held only in November. With that being the case, both Rajput and Silavat will have to quit as ministers for not being MLAs. As per the rule, both of them should be elected to assembly by 22 October as they had taken oath as minister on 22 April. Any minister, who is not a member of the Assembly, should become an MLA before the completion of six-month period after his oath as minister, says the rule. Hence, the six-month period for Silawat and Rajput will be over by 22 October. If elections are not held by then it will be too late for them.

Apart from this, despite several months after joining the BJP, Jyotiraditya Scindia is yet to become a minister in the cabinet of Narendra Modi. Scindia supporters are unhappy with his not being inducted in the cabinet as of now. They are of the view that Scindia as a minister would have created an impact during the campaign for by-elections.

Meanwhile, the Congress is happy with the delay in elections thinking that it is going to benefit in the by-polls due to this. The party on Friday announced 15 candidates for Madhya Pradesh byelections.

Sources said that the Election Commission of India may take some more time in announcing the dates of elections due to the current corona crisis. By-elections in 64 seats across the country including 27 of Madhya Pradesh have to take place. It is expected that these bypolls will be held together with Bihar elections. Bihar polls are to be held before November 29. Speculations are that Bihar elections can be held after the second week of November in one or two phases.

The ECI may announce the schedule at the end of this month. With this in view, there are speculations that by-elections for Madhya Pradesh’ 27 seats may be held in November. But this does not bode well for the Scindia camp, with two ministers of his camp set to lose their posts in that condition.

However, Scindia is putting in his best as far as campaigning is concerned. He is campaigning along with CM Chauhan and Union minister Narendra Singh Tomar in MP. This is certain that the BJP will give tickets to all those who left Congress.`

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