Rahul Gandhi appointed Cong general secy

NEW DELHI: Rahul Gandhi, heir of the Nehru-Gandhi family, on Monday formally joined the Congress organisational structure as a general secretary. Sonia Gandhi, who appeared to be positioning her troops and team leaders for an early election, announced a line-up that is essentially a mix of the youth and the experienced.

Ms Gandhi also effected changes in the party’s top posts in states like Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. The party tried to catch up with its rivals in social engineering techniques and awarded key posts to Brahmins and Dalits, too.

Ms Gandhi retained all eight members of the outgoing AICC secretariat while inducting four new general secretaries — Rahul, Prithviraj Chauhan, Kishore Chandra Deo and Mohsina Kidwai — but her new allocation of portfolios signalled the changing power equations in the leadership.

Two central ministers — minister of state (MoS) in PMO Mr Chauhan and MoS in urban development Ajay Maken — have also been given additional assignment in the party, raising speculations of an imminent Cabinet rejig.

The CWC has been expanded to a 23-member body with Mr Gandhi, Mr Chauhan and Mr Deo making their debut in the top party body. Veterans like Pranab Mukherjee, Arjun Singh, AK Antony, Digvijay Singh, Ahmed Patel, Ambika Soni, Ashok Gehlot, Shivraj Patil and Motilal Vora will continue to be in the top decision-making body. The CWC will now have five women — Mohsina Kidwai, Margaret Alva, Ambika Soni and Urmila Singh, besides Ms Gandhi herself — with the first two holding the post of general secretaries.

Ms Gandhi has also inducted the party’s so-called GeNext in the AICC’s second rung by naming young Lok Sabha members Jitin Prasada, Priya Dutt, former NSUI chiefs Alka Lamba and Meenakshi Natarajan among the 34 AICC secretaries. While Jyotiraditya Scindia remains a special invitee to the CWC with an additional berth in a planning team, Sachin Pilot and Murli Deora have been made members of two new committees.

Five permanent invitees to the CWC, including the newly-inducted Maken, have been given independent charges of the states. Veerappa Moily managed to get into many important bodies. But Noor Bano, Ram Naresh Yadav and MM Jacob have lost their berths as invitees to the top party body. The group of special invitees to the CWC has been trimmed to just six, from the 13 earlier. Among those who lost berths in this third-rung of top body are Union minister T Subbirami Reddy, Mr Maken, Krishna Tirath and V Vaithilingam.

Acknowledging the need for community-caste challenge to the Congress, the party president has instituted two important committees in which Mr Gandhi will also be a member. The two committees are a “group to look into future challenges and an 11-member publicity and publication committee.”