Days after announcing the new team, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Tuesday met the newly appointed secretaries and joint secretaries and said that the party will reach out to every Indian. The meeting at the party office came days after the much awaited list of secretaries and join secretaries were announced last week.
Kharge had named 75 secretaries and joint secretaries, whixlch includes 12 women and gave representation to over 60 per cent of the Leaders from OBCs, Schedule Caste and Schedule tribe categories. The meeting was also attended by Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, party General Secretary (Organisation) KC Venugopal at the party headquarters.
Following the meeting, Kharge took to X, formerly Twitter, said, “Congress will reach out to every Indian. We chaired a meeting of the newly appointed AICC Secretaries and Joint Secretaries. “We are determined to strengthen our organisation, involve each voice and keep speaking truth to power,” Kharge, who is also the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha said. The Congress list of 75 secretaries and joint secretaries has the stamp of party’s ‘Udaipur Chintan Shivir’ held in May 2022 promising ‘50 under 50 years’ and also brining fresh sets of people with a mix of experience.
On Friday, Congress announced a new team of 66 Secretaries, including seven from Karnataka, and eight Joint Secretaries in the first large-scale reshuffle in these ranks after Mallikarjun Kharge took over as party president. Of the 66 new Secretaries, 34 of them are new faces while 32 from the old team have been retained. In the outgoing team, there were 60 Secretaries of which 28 have been dropped while among Joint Secretaries, three are new faces while three have been dropped.
According to Congress sources, Kharge was very keen on taking Udaipuur Nav Sakalp Shivir resolution and giving representation to SC, ST and OBC in the new list. The source said that more than 60 per cent representation has been given to SC, ST and OBC in the new team announced on Friday. For the last one year, Rahul Gandhi and Kharge has been taking a stand for representation of SC, ST and OBCs in the government posts. The grandmold party has also been demanding caste based census across the country.