shanimol usman Congress leader from Kerala, Shanimol Usman was inducted into the reconstituted Congress Working Committee as AICC Secretary today.
With the election schedule for five states out, the Congress party, Friday, announced the new Congress Working Committee (CWC), party’s top policy making body.Although the party has gone for a rejig of the CWC, there are not many surprises in the list of new office bearers. Those retained in the CWC besides Rahul Gandhi are Pranab Mukherjee, AK Antony, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Ambika Soni, Motilal Vora, Digvijay Singh, Janardan Dwivedi.
Among those renominated to the CWC are Prithviraj Chavan, Mallikarjun Kharge, V Narayansami and Chandra Deo. Oscar Fernandes has been promoted to CWC, the highest policy- making body of the party, and made a general secretary.
Senior leader Ahmed Patel, who retains his position as political secretary to Congress president, will continue to be part of the CWC, which will now have 19 members including Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Among those who have been dropped from the apex body are Arjun Singh, Mohsina Kidwai, K Keshava Rao and G Venkatswami.
The new team includes:
Treasurer: Motilal Vora
Political secretary: Ahmed Patel
General Secretaries: Rahul Gandhi, BK Hari Prasad, Verender Singh, Digvijay Singh, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Janardan Dwivedi, Madhusudan Mistry and Oscar Fernandes. In-charge of different states or organisation: Dhani Ram Shandilya, Gulchain Singh Charak, Jagdish Tytler, Jagmeet Singh Brar, Luizinho Falero, Mohan Prakash, Mohsina Kidwai, Shakeel Ahmed.
Permanent Invitees: Arjun Singh, Mohsina Kidwai, P Chidambaram, DR Karan Singh, ML Fotedar, RK Dhawan, SC Jamir, Shivaji Rao Deshmukh, Beni Prasad Verma, MV Rajshekharan, Ajit Jogi, Shakeel Ahmed, Jagdish Tytler, Jagmeet Singh Brar, Luizinho Falero, Mohan Prakash, Gulchain Singh Charak.
Special Invitees: G Sanjeeva Reddy, Mohinder Singh Kaypee, Anil Shastri, Nirmal Khatri, Raj Babar
Secretaries: Abdul Manan Ansari, Anees Ahmed, Ashok Tanwar, Bhakta Charan Das, Mirza Dilshad Baig, Jai Dev Jena, Jitendra Singh, K Jayakumar, KB Krishnamurthy, Manish Chatrath, Meenakshi Natrajan, Pankaj Sharma, Parvez Hashmi, Praveen Rashtrapal, Priya Dutt, RC Khuntia, Sagar Rayka, Sanjay Bhankuna, Sanjay Bhori, Sanjay Nirupam, Shanimol Usman, Shantaram Naik, Sudhakar Reddy, Tarachand Bhagora, V Hanumantha Rao, Major Ved Prakash, Vinay Kumar, Sorkae, Vivek Bansal.
Special secretaries: Avatar Singh Bhadana, Deepak Babaria, Vijay Lakshmi Sadho, Asha Kumari, Panjkaj SharmaThose dropped include Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithvi Raj Chavan, Law Minister Veerappa Moily, and Vilasrao Deshmukh.
The 1,000-odd members of the AICC constitute the electoral college for the CWC polls. Of the entire CWC, there is a provision for election of 12 and nomination of 11. The Congress president as well as the parliamentary party leader of the party are always members of the CWC with the party chief heading the key body.There has been no contest for the CWC since Gandhi took over the reins of the organisation in April 1998.The last two contests for the CWC were in 1997 at the Kolkata Plenary when Sitaram Kesri was the party chief and in April 1992 at the Tirupati Plenary when late prime minister PV Narasimha Rao was at the helm.
Sharad Pawar and Arjun Singh were the prominent winners during these contests, as also Ahmed Patel and late Jitendra Prasada.