Balancing act: Rahul Gandhi reconstitutes party working committee

[FILE] Congress president Rahul Gandhi | PTI [FILE] Congress president Rahul Gandhi | PTI

Ending a long, suspenseful wait, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday reconstituted the Congress Working Committee—the party's highest decision making body. The exercise marked a conscious effort to give weightage to senior leaders even as some young leaders have found place in the revamped CWC.

The new 23-member CWC includes young leaders such as Selja Kumari, Avinash Pande, K.C. Venugopal and Dipak Babaria.

Some of the young faces in the list of 18 permanent invitees include Jyotiraditya Scindia, Jitendra Singh, R.P.N Singh, Randeep Surjewala, Rajeev Satav, Gaurav Gogoi and Shaktisinh Gohil. Amongst the ten special invitees too are a few young leaders –Arun Yadav, Deepender Hooda, Jitin Prasada and Kuldeep Vishnoi.

However, seniors dominate the 23-member CWC, with longtimers such as Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh, Motilal Vora, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Mallikarjun Kharge, A.K. Antony, Ahmed Patel, Ambika Soni, Oomen Chandy, Tarun Gogoi, Siddaramaiah, Anand Sharma, Harish Rawat and Ashok Gehlot getting inducted into the committee.

Senior leaders such as Sheila Dikshit, P. Chidambaram and Balasaheb Thorat have been included as permanent invitees.

Amongst the senior leaders who have exited the CWC are established names, including Digvijaya Singh, C.P. Joshi, Janardan Dwivedi, Kamal Nath, Mohan Prakash, B.K. Hariprasad and Sushil Kumar Shinde.

The AICC had authorised Rahul Gandhi to nominate the new CWC at the plenary session held in March this year. Giving rise to expectation that there might be an overhaul of the set-up, Rahul Gandhi had said at the session that he wanted to break down walls in the party. However, as the reconstituted CWC shows, the Congress president, who took over the responsibility in December last year, has had to balance the aspirations of the younger generation in the party with the expectations of the veterans.