Congress forms larger CEC with 16 members ahead of key assembly polls

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Monday night announced a new and larger Congress Central Election Committee (CEC) with many fresh faces and exclusions from the outgoing panel.

The new 16-member Kharge-headed CEC, with Sonia-Rahul duo continuing in it, has new faces such as Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, Salman Khurshid, Madhusudan Mistry, N Uttamkumar Reddy, TS Singh Deo, KG George, Pritam Singh, Mohd Jawed, Amee Yajnik, PL Punia and Omkar Markam as members while KC Venugopal and Ambika Soni stay on. Of the outgoing 10-member CEC, those who have been dropped are Manmohan Singh, AK Antony, Girija Vyas, Janardan Dwivedi, Mukul Wasnik, Veerappa Moily and Mohsina Kidwai.

The CEC, theoretically, clears the final list of the Congress candidates for the Lok Sabha and assembly elections though in reality the selection is done by the AICC and respective PCC leaderships. With his dropping from CEC, Janardan Dwivedi has lost his last foothold in the AICC structure while Wasnik is a notable exit. The exclusion of Manmohan Singh, Antony, Kidwai and Vyas is seen more as them not being very active on ground anymore to attend the CEC meetings.