Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday announced his new Congress Working Committee (CWC) where prominent leaders like Digvijay Singh, Janardan Dwivedi, Kamal Nath, Sushilkumar Shinde, Mohan Prakash and CP Joshi were dropped from the 23 members’ apex body of party. The 19 permanent invitees include former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit besides a list of nine special invitees.
Former party chief and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, senior party leaders Motilal Vora, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Mallikarjun Kharge, AK Antony, Ahmed Patel, Ambika Soni has been retained while Sheila Dikshit, P Chidambaram, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Balasaheb Thorat, Tariq Hameed Karra are among the permanent invitees.
Those included are former Chief Ministers Ashok Gehlot, Oomen Chandy, Tarun Gogoi, Siddharamaiah and Harish Rawat. The first meeting of the party’s highest decision-making body which has a blend of young and old leaders have been convened on July 22.
The Independent in-charges appointed for various States will be among the permanent invitees to the working committee as ex-officio members, while the heads of five frontal organisations of the party — INTUC, Sewa Dal, Youth Congress, Mahila Congress and NSUI — will be part of the special invitees.
The first CWC meeting will be of an ‘extended working committee’ as Rahul Gandhi has also invited all State unit presidents and Congress legislative Party leaders from States. The committee was dissolved prior to the election of the Congress president and the earlier panel was transformed into a steering committee till the party’s plenary session that concluded in March. The CWC, which acts as an advisory panel on all key decisions of the party, was not in place since the plenary session in March this year.