Congress drops Ghulam Nabi Azad and Ambika Soni as general secretaries, Randeep Surjewala gains big

In a major organisational reshuffle, the Congress on Friday reconstituted the party`s working committee and dropped senior leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad and Ambika Soni as general secretaries. Several other leaders Motilal Vora, Mallikarjun Kharge and Luizinho Falerio were also dropped from their posts.

Azad and Soni, however, continue in the reconstituted working committee. Azad was among 23 leaders who had written a letter to party chief Sonia Gandhi calling for a complete overhaul of the organisation, a full-time president and elections to Congress Working Committee. 

In the reshuffle, Randeep Surjewala gained big as he has been inducted in the high-power six-member panel that advises the Congress president. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will continue to be in charge of Uttar Pradesh.

The special committee comprising A K Antony, Ahmed Patel, and Ambika Soni will assist her in party matters.

P Chidambaram, Jitendra Singh, Tariq Anwar and Randeep Surjewala have been made regular CWC members in organisational rejig by Sonia Gandhi. KC Venugopal, Mukul Wasnik and Randeep Surjewala also in special committee to assist Gandhi in organisational matters.

Pawan Kumar Bansal will be the secretary in charge administration, Harish Rawat to be general secretary in-charge Punjab, Tariq Anwar to be in-charge for Kerala and Lakshadweep, Jitendra Singh in-charge Assam, and Oommen Chandy will be in-charge for Andhra Pradesh.

The new members of the Congress Working Committee will be--Digvijay Singh, Manickam Tagore, Rajiv Shukla, Jairam Ramesh, Salman Khurshid, HK Patil, Pramod Tiwari, Dinesh Gundurao, Pawan Bansal, Kuljit Nagra and Manish Chatrath.