As Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge named Randeep Surjewala as the party’s new general secretary for poll-bound Madhya Pradesh, and Mukul Wasnik for Gujarat, the spotlight is back on the delay in announcing a new Congress Working Committee (CWC).
Mr. Kharge had been authorised to nominate CWC members on February 24 at the Raipur Plenary session. However, he is yet to announce the party’s highest decision-making body and is still functioning with the outgoing CWC or its Steering Committee.
New responsibilities
Mr. Wasnik, once a part of the so-called G-23, a group that had revolted against the Congress leadership, will now replace Raghu Sharma as the general secretary in-charge of Gujarat.
Mr. Surjewala has been given the responsibility for poll-bound Madhya Pradesh, in addition to his responsibility for Karnataka. In M.P., he replaces the party’s senior leader from Delhi, Jai Prakash Aggarwal.
Mr. Surjewala — who had delivered Karnataka by taking along different factions of Karnataka Congress and come up with innovative slogans like “40 per cent sarkara” against the BJP government — will now be working alongside senior leaders like Kamal Nath and Digvijaya Singh, as the Congress seeks to wrest M.P. from the BJP. Known as a detail-oriented politician, Mr. Surjewala was recently appointed as a senior election-observer for the poll-bound State.
Changes underway in States
Mr. Kharge also appointed former MLA Ajay Rai — who had unsuccessfully contested against Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Varanasi in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls — as the president of the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee, with immediate effect, replacing Dalit leader Brijlal Khabri.
“The party appreciates the contribution of the outgoing PCC president Brijlal Khabri, Ex-MP, and all the zonal presidents,” said a statement issued by the party’s general secretary for organisation, K.C. Venugopal.
An organisational overhaul of State units of the Congress is underway and more appointments are likely to be made in the coming days, a source said.
