Six months after taking over as Congress president, Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday reconstituted the Congress Working Committee (CWC) in what seemed to be a balancing act between experienced hands and younger faces.
There are 18 permanent invitees and 10 special invitees, taking the number of CWC members to 51. The first meeting of the CWC has been scheduled for July 22.
Apart from UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, several senior leaders including Moti Lal Vohra, A.K. Antony, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Ahmed Patel, Ambika Soni, Mallikarjun Kharge and Mukul Wasnik have retained their positions.
Karan Singh
Several former chief ministers including Tarun Gogoi, Oommen Chandy, Ashok Gehlot and Harish Rawat have made an entry to the CWC, that will form the Congress party’s core team for the 2019 poll, as members.
Permanent invitees
Former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, former Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit are among the permanent invitees that also includes younger leaders like Jyotiraditya Scindia, Gaurav Gogoi, Rajeev Satav, and R.P.N. Singh among others.
Prominent names to be dropped included former Rajya Sabha MP Karan Singh, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh, veterans Janardan Dwivedi, C.P. Joshi, Sushil Kumar Shinde, Oscar Fernandes, Mohan Prakash and B.K. Hariprasad. Heads of all frontal organisations such as Youth Congress, NSUI and Mahila Congress have been made special invitees. The CWC was announced four months after the AICC plenary session in March ratified the election of Mr. Gandhi as party chief and authorised him to set up the new CWC.
