Rejig in AICC`s spokespersons panel; Renuka dropped, Surjewala inducted

New Delhi: Congress leader Renuka Chowdhary has been dropped from the panel of spokespersons while Haryana Minister Randip Singh Surjewala was inducted. Sources in the party said that Chowdhary has been asked not to address any of media briefing for the AICC for two months -- November and December.

While the party has not given any reason for dropping Chowdhary, a former Union minister, from the list of spokespersons, sources say the leadership was not satisfied with her performance as a spokesperson. Surjewala has been regularly addressing media briefings of the AICC for quite some time and his formal inclusion in the list is merely a formality, they said. Currently six spokersons are briefing the press in AICC-- P C Chacko, Bhakta Charan Das, Raj Babbar, Meem Afzal, Sandip Dikshit and Surjewala. Chowdhary had last addressed the AICC press conference on October 18. In the May 5 regij of the AICC communication department, Congress had dropped Rashid Alvi as Congress spokesperson bringing in a new team of eight spokespersons, retaining existing three and inducting five fresh faces. The new faces were Raj Babbar, Shakeel Ahmed, Mohan Prakash, Meem Afzal and Bhakta Charan Das. Renuka Chowdhury, Sandeep Dikshit and P C Chacko were retained as spokespersons. Two of them, Mohan Prakash and Shakeel Ahmed, were later elevated as AICC general secretaries in June this year and had not been coming to brief the media since then. There was speculation that Alvi, after being dropped as party spokesperson, will be given some key charge but that did not happen. It remains to be seen what will be the fate of Chowdhary, who was the only woman spokesperson enlisted in the panel of spokespersons for AICC briefings.