The buzz about a possible reshuffle in the Congress gained momentum after a senior party functionary indicated that it could ‘happen any time soon’.
The statement the Congress leader put that he has himself been ‘waiting’ for such a reshuffle for the past two years was discounted.
More so as some of the AICC general secretaries holding charges of important states have been appointed party spokespersons. For instance, Shakeel Ahmed, AICC in-charge of West Bengal and Jharkhand, and Mohan Prakash, who has independent charge on Maharashtra, Jammu and Kashmir and Gujarat, have been made party spokespersons.
Even since, Rahul Gandhi took charge of running the party organisation, the general belief was that he would prefer to keep the departments separate.
The general practice for the past few years was that once a leader was promoted as in-charge of some state, he no longer expected to do the spokespersons’ job.
Many in the Congress were also of the opinion that ever since Rahul became vice-president he had been prompting tribal, Schedule Castes and OBC leaders over others. The trend is expected to be reflected in the reshuffle. The reshuffle could see a few general secretaries being given the charge of more number of states as the AICC secretaries functioning under them were expected to be given additional power in handling the affairs of the respective states allotted to them, a Congress leader said.
Rahul had held meetings with AICC office bearers and 22 state party leaders.
In most of these meetings, a major complaint was that AICC secretaries were not given work by their seniors. But it is likely that those who are given charge of important states may not be given tickets to contest the Lok Sabha polls.
Since some senior leaders of the party may retire from active politics after 2014, there is a fair chance to young Congress MPs and Youth Congress office bearers to get prominent responsibilities in the reshuffle, party sources said.