The much awaited Congress Working Committee was unveiled today, the exercise assuming added significance on account of being undertaken in the run-up to a slew of crucial Assembly elections and the Lok Sabha polls. Among the new entrants, the names which stand out include that of Lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor and former Rajasthan Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot.
The CWC has 39 members, besides 32 permanent invitees who include the in-charges of states, and there are 13 special invitees, including presidents of the Youth Congress, the NSUI, the Mahila Congress and the Seva Dal as ex-officio members.
The reconstitution of the highest decision making body of the Congress was completed six months after the AICC Plenary in Raipur, where the election of Mallikarjun Kharge as party president was ratified and he was authorised to nominate the members of the new CWC.
The re-cast primary list of the CWC is not drastically different, with many names, including party veterans, who were a part of the panel earlier, featuring in it again. The 39-member list of the CWC includes, besides Kharge, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and former party chiefs Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi. At the Raipur plenary, the party's Constitution was amended to give life-long membership of the CWC to former party presidents and prime ministers belonging to the party.Â
The leaders who have retained their place in the panel include A.K. Antony, P. Chidambaram, Digvijaya Singh, K.C. Venugopal, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Tariq Anwar, Ambika Soni, Meira Kumar, Jairam Ramesh, Randeep Surjewala and Kumari Selja.
Amongst the new entrants, the name which has garnered maximum attention is that of Tharoor. There had been much speculation over whether Tharoor, who had contested the election to the post of party president against Kharge, would be accommodated in the CWC. Besides Tharoor, the panel also includes Mukul Wasnik and Anand Sharma, two other leaders who were members of the so-called 'G-23' group which had written a letter to then party president Sonia Gandhi in August 2020, raising issues pertaining to the perceived existential crisis in the party. Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari, another leader identified as a member of the G-23, finds place in the list of permanent invitees.
Another name that is a highlight of the re-cast CWC is that of Pilot, who has been engaged in a long-running tussle for power with Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot. The Congress leadership has succeeded in getting the two leaders to call a truce. Pilot's inclusion in the CWC is apparently the party high command's way of rehabilitating him and giving him respectability while Gehlot continues to be at the helm of affairs in Rajasthan in the run up to the Assembly elections in the state.
Also finding place amongst the 39 primary members of the CWC are former Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi, former MP from West Bengal Deepa Das Munshi, Rajya Sabha MP and AICC coordinator in the party president's office Syed Nasser Hussain, Lok Sabha MP Gaurav Gogoi, Gujarat leader Deepak Babaria, former union minister Ajay Maken, Chhattisgarh minister Tamradhwaj Sahu, AICC General Secretary Jitendra Singh, Rajya Sabha MP and prominent lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi and former union minister Salman Khurshid.
The permanent invitees include veterans such as Veerappa Moily, Harish Rawat, Pawan Kumar Bansal, Ramesh Chennithala, B.K. Hariprasad, Pratibha Singh, Mohan Prakash, T. Subbarami Reddy and Tareeq Hameed Karra as also younger leaders such as Deepender Singh Hooda, Meenakshi Natarajan, Phulo Devi Netam and Sudip Roy Burman.
Gurdeep Sappal, who is an AICC coordinator in the party president's office, finds a place in the CWC under the list of in-charges.
The special invitees include Pallam Raju, Pawan Khera, Ganesh Godiyal, Kodikkunil Suresh, Yashomati Thakur, Supriya Srinate, Priniti Shinde, Alka Lamba and Vamshi Chand Reddy.
