Ahead of five states Assembly elections and the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, in a major re-jig Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Sunday reconstituted the Congress Working Committee (CWC), party’s “highest executive authority”. While 39 members of the panel are general members, it has 32 permanent invitees, including some in-charges of state, and 13 special invitees.
The development comes months after the party decided not to hold elections to the CWC at a meeting of the Steering Committee, which was not attended by members of the Gandhi family, including Rahul, Priyanka and Sonia Gandhi. The February meeting unanimously authorised Kharge to nominate the members of the panel.
The list of CWC members released on Sunday includes senior party leaders like former prime minister Manmohan Singh, members of the Gandhi family (Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka), former Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram, and Rajya Sabha MP and former Union minister Jairam Ramesh. Kharge is also a member of the CWC. Sachin Pilot, who rebelled against the party’s government in Rajasthan and was later removed as deputy chief minister, is also among the new CWC members.
Other prominent names include former Kerala CM A K Antony, former Madhya Pradesh CM Digvijaya Singh, former Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar, former Punjab CM Charanjit Singh Channi, Lok Sabha MP Gaurav Gogoi and Congress general secretary K C Venugopal.
Lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor, Anand Sharma and Mukul Wasnik, who were part of the group of 23 leaders that had raised questions on the party’s leadership under Sonia Gandhi, are among the general members of the new CWC.
Manish Tewari and Veerappa Moily, who were also part of the grouping, have been made permanent invitees. Other permanent invitees include former Uttarakhand CM Harish Rawat, Pawan Kumar Bansal, K Raju, Lok Sabha MP Manickam Tagore, and former student leader Kanhaiya Kumar, among others.
Former Punjab chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi and Pratibha Singh have also been included in the important panel, according to a Congress statement.
The list of special invitees includes senior leader Pawan Khera, former MLA from Delhi Alka Lamba and national spokesperson Supriya Shrinate.