Congress names new heads for minority departments of states

New Delhi: Effecting a major reshuffle, Congress on Friday appoined new heads for its Minority Departments in 12 states including key states of Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat.

An AICC release issued by party general secretary Janardan Dwivedi said that the Congress president Sonia Gandhi has approved the names of M M Shaikh as Chairman of the Minority Department of Maharashtra, Gulab Khan Raima for Gujarat, Siraj Mehandi for Uttar Pradesh, Amjad Khan Pathan for Punjab, Manzoor Ahmed Beg for Uttarakhand, Nizamuddin Qureshi for Rajasthan and Sharik Raees Khan for Chhattisgarh.

Ahmed Ali Khan has been made the Chairman of the minority department for Andhra Pradesh, Wajed Ali Choudhary for Assam, Billal Mia for Tripura and Bahauddin Beg for Daman and Diu.

Sources said that changes will follow in other states soon as they were long due. It has been found that the department was not at all functional in a number of new states and hence a decision to thoroughly revamp the minority department in all states have been taken.

In Ocotber last year, the party had appointed Khurshid Ahmed Saiyed, a minority leader from Gujarat as Chairman of the AICC Minority Department replacing Imran Ur Rahman Kidwai, who held the post for more than eight years. He is considered a Rahul Gandhi pick. This is the first such major reshuffle in the minority department of the AICC after he took over.