The Congress has chosen former Prime Minister Rajeev Gandhi’s birth anniversary to announce Congress Working Committee (CWC), the highest decision taking body in the grand old party.
After Udaipur declaration, it was expected that the CWC would be announced but the party took almost 4 months to constitute it as it was not an easy job to accommodate seniors like A. K. Antony, Ambika Soni and Manmohan Singh in the group. On the other hand, the Congress wanted to give political message for the poll-bound states. As per the list, Sachin Pilot, Digvijay Singh and Kamleshwar Patel are leaders who have to face elections in their respective states in the coming months.
Udaipur meet of the Congress party declared seats in the CWC for youth, women and backwards. Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinet, Pawan Khera, Alka Lamba, Priniti Shinde, Dependra Hooda and K Raju are the new entries.
Congress has even reached out to the dissidents- Anand Sharma who was a key functionary of G23, and Manish Tiwari. Even Shashi Tharoor, who fought election against Kharge for the Congress President, has been included in the list. CWC now will have 39 members. This is the new team of the Congress party for 2024 general elections but would be tested in the coming assembly elections. There were suggestions in the past about the early elections for the CWC members. Former Punjab chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi and Pratibha Singh have also been included in the important panel, according to a Congress statement. Former Maharashtra chief minister Ashokrao Chavan, N Raghuveera Reddy, Tamradhwaj Sahu, Deepa Das Munshi, Syed Naseer Hussain, Mahendrajeet Singh Malviya, G A Mir, Gourav Gogoi and Jagdish Thakore are among the new additions in the CWC as regular members. Among the new CWC permanent invitees are Kanhaiya Kumar, Mohan Prakash, K Raju, Chandrakant Handore, Meenakshi Natarajan, Phulo Devi Netam, Sudeep Roy Burman, Damodar Raja Narasimha, Gurdeep Sappal and Sachin Rao. Those also included as special invitees are former Union minister Pallam Raju, besides Pawan Khera, Ganesh Godiyal, Kodikkunil Suresh, Yashomati Thakur, Supriya Shrinate, Priniti Shinde, Alka Lamba and Vamshi Chand Reddy.