NEW DELHI: Ahead of the crucial Assembly elections and the Lok Sabha elections, the Congress on Sunday reconstituted the Congress Working Committee (CWC).
Shashi Tharoor, Anand Sharma, and Mukul Wasnik, three members of the group of 23 dissident leaders who had called for reforms within the party and disgruntled Rajasthan leader Sachin Pilot have been brought into the party’s apex decision-making body.
The revamped CWC includes senior party leaders Manmohan Singh, K C Venugopal, Jairam Ramesh, Adhir Ranjan Choudhary, A K Antony, Ambika Soni, Meira Kumar, Digvijaya Singh, P Chidambaram, and Tariq Anwar, besides party president Mallikarjun Kharge as well as members of the Gandhi family.
Former Rajasthan deputy chief minister Pilot’s inclusion in the committee is seen as an attempt to placate him ahead of the Assembly elections in the state later this year. He had been at loggerheads with fellow Congress leader and Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot over power-sharing.
The pilot took to social media to express his gratitude to the party leadership. “We all will strengthen the customs and ideology of the Congress and take it more strongly to the people,” he wrote on X.
Manish Tewari and Veerappa Moily, who were also part of the group, have been made permanent invitees to the CWC.
Though the party amended its constitution in February to provide a 50% horizontal reservation to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes, women, youngsters, and minorities in the CWC, the composition of the new panel doesn’t reflect the promise. There are only 15 women in the 84-member CWC, including six general members, four permanent invitees, and five special invitees.
Also, contrary to the party’s promise that half of its permanent members in the newly constituted CWC will be under 50 years of age, only three members, Pilot, Gaurav Gogoi, and Kamaleshwar Patel are under that age limit. The reconstituted CWC body has 39 permanent members, 18 permanent invitees, 14 state and four organizational in-charges, and nine special invitees.