Azad, Scindia, Surjewala drafted into Cong poll panel

File photos of Ghulam Nabi Azad and Jyotiraditya Scindia. Both were on Saturday made members of the Congress Election Coordination Committee headed by Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi.

Senior leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad, Jyotiraditya Scindia and Randip Surjewala were on Saturday made members of the Congress Election Coordination Committee headed by Mr. Rahul Gandhi, a day after he was asked by AICC to lead its campaign for Lok Sabha polls.

With the nomination to the panel of Mr. Azad and Mr. Scindia, both Union ministers and Mr. Surjewala, an AICC spokesman, its strength has now gone up to 11.

A former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Mr. Azad has earlier been a party general secretary who has handled its affairs in several states, including Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

Mr. Scindia was the head of the party’s campaign committee for the recent Madhya Pradesh Assembly polls.

Mr. Surjewala is a minister in Haryana. He has earlier been a working president of the party in the state and also an Indian Youth Congress chief.

The Committee was constituted in November, 2012, under Mr. Rahul, which was the first official stamp for his number two position in the party.

Other members of the Committee are Mr. Ahmed Patel, Mr. Janardan Dwivedi, Mr. Digvijay Singh, Mr. Madhusudan Mistry, Mr. Jairam Ramesh, Mr. Joshi and Mr. Ajay Maken.

In November, 2012, AICC had also announced three sub-groups -- a six-member pre-poll alliances sub-group headed by Defence Minister A.K. Antony, a 10-member manifesto and government programmes’ sub-group, also headed by Antony, and a seven-member communication and publicity sub-group headed by party general secretary Digvijay Singh.

The manifesto and government programmes’ sub-group has Mohan Gopal as a special invitee, the only non-politician on the panel.

The Coordination Committee has been strengthened at a time when the party is looking to get its act together with just three months left for Lok Sabha polls.

The AICC meeting on Friday adopted a resolution which indicated that the party would continue to follow the policy of going in for alliances to come up the winner.

The phrasing of the resolution on Friday was almost similar to the one adopted by the party at the Shimla Conclave in 2003 when Congress shed its reservation to coalition politics.

Congress had then called for the unity of secular forces.