Congress chief Sonia Gandhi appoints Kumari Selja, Abhishek Manu Singhvi as CWC members

New Delhi: The Congress leadership on Thursday appointed former president of its Haryana unit, Kumari Selja, and legal luminaire Abhishek Manu Singhvi to the Congress Working Committee, the party's highest decision-making body.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi had replaced Selja with Udai Bhan on the insistence of former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, during the restructuring of the Haryana PCC recently. Ban is a Hooda loyalist. Selja's elevation to the CWC seems to be ample compensation for a person who is seen as a Gandhi family loyalist.

Singhvi's elevation comes shortly after another legal luminaire, Kapil Sibal, quit the party. Sibal had appeared for the Gandhis in some court cases. Singhvi, a Rajya Sabha member elected from West Bengal with the help of the Trinamool Congress, is a Congress spokesperson and has also appeared in cases for the Gandhis.


The Congress president had recently removed Haryana Congress leader Kuldeep Bishnoi as a special invitee of the CWC after he cross-voted in the Rajya Sabha elections in Haryana, resulting in a shock defeat of Congress' official candidate Ajay Maken. On Thursday, former UPCC chief Ajay Kumar Lallu was appointed a special invitee to the CWC. Former Rajya Sabha member T Subbarami Reddy was also appointed a permanent invitee to the CWC by the Congress president.