New Delhi: Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Sunday reconstituted the party’s top decision-making body – CWC – with some leaders of the G23 grouping, including Shashi Tharoor and Anand Sharma, who were critical of the party leadership in the past among the 84 members.
The all-important Congress Working Committee, formed 10 months after Kharge took charge after defeating Tharoor, includes several young faces who are below the age of 50, leaders from weaker sections and 15 women.
The new CWC has 39 regular members, 32 permanent invitees, including some in-charges of state, and 13 special invitees, including presidents of the Youth Congress, the National Students’ Union of India, the Mahila Congress and the Seva Dal as ex-officio members.
Mukul Wasnik, Anand Sharma and Tharoor, who were part of the group of 23 dissident leaders who had written to then Congress president Sonia Gandhi and had raised questions on the party’s leadership, are among the regular members of the new CWC.
Manish Tewari and Veerappa Moily, who were also part of the grouping, have been made permanent invitees to the CWC.
Sachin Pilot, who rebelled against the party’s government in Rajasthan in 2020 and was later removed as deputy chief minister, is also among the new CWC members.
Prominent exclusions in the new CWC include ex-MP from Rajasthan Raghuveer Singh Meena, Jai Prakash Aggarwal, Dinesh Gundu Rao, H K Patil, K H Muniappa, P L Punia, Pramod Tiwari and Raghu Sharma.
Gundu Rao, Muniappa and Patil have since become ministers in the Congress government in Karnataka.
Former Punjab chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi and Pratibha Singh have also been included in the important panel, according to a Congress statement.
Former Maharashtra chief minister Ashokrao Chavan, N Raghuveera Reddy, Tamradhwaj Sahu, Deepa Das Munshi, Syed Naseer Hussain, Mahendrajeet Singh Malviya, G A Mir, Gourav Gogoi and Jagdish Thakore are among the new additions in the CWC as regular members.
Among the new CWC permanent invitees are Kanhaiya Kumar, Mohan Prakash, K Raju, Chandrakant Handore, Meenakshi Natarajan, Phulo Devi Netam, Sudeep Roy Burman, Damodar Raja Narasimha, Gurdeep Sappal and Sachin Rao.
Those also included as special invitees are former Union minister Pallam Raju, besides Pawan Khera, Ganesh Godiyal, Kodikkunil Suresh, Yashomati Thakur, Supriya Shrinate, Priniti Shinde, Alka Lamba and Vamshi Chand Reddy.
The new CWC, which replaces the Steering Committee that was formed as a stop-gap arrangement after Kharge became the party president on October 10 last year, has been announced as the principal opposition party prepares for a crucial round of assembly polls in the coming months and the 2024 general elections.
The last time the Congress Working Committee was reconstituted was on September 11, 2020 under Sonia Gandhi’s presidentship. This is the first Working Committee formed under Mallikarjun Kharge’s presidency.
The new working committee has been formed after several rounds of deliberations.
There are, however, only 15 women in the 84-member body, including six general members, four permanent invitees and five special invitees.
The regular members of the CWC are Mallikarjun Kharge, Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh, Rahul Gandhi, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, A K Antony, Ambika Soni, Meira Kumar, Digvijaya Singh, P Chidambaram, Tariq Anwar, Lal Thanhawala, Mukul Wasnik, Anand Sharma, Adhokrao Chavan, Ajay Maken, Charanjit Singh Channi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Kumari Selja, the statement said.
Gaikhangam, N Raghuveera Reddy, Shashi Tharoor, Tamradhwaj Sahu, Abhishek Singhvi, Salman Khurshid, Jairam Ramesh, Jitendra Singh, Randeep Surjewala, Sachin Pilot, Deepak Babaria, Jagdish Thakore, G S Mir, Avinash Pande, Deepa Das Munshi, Mahendrajeet Singh Malviya, Gourav Gogoi, Syed Naseer Hussain, Kamaleshwar Patel and K C Venugopal are also members.
