Congress President Rahul Gandhi constituted the Congress Working Committee and dropped veterans Digvijay Singh, Janardan Dwivedi, Kamal Nath, Sushilkumar Shinde and Karan Singh from the party's highest decision-making body.
The new Congress Working Committee (CWC) includes 23 members, 19 permanent invitees and 9 special invitees.
The working committee included veterans like A K Antony, Ahmed Patel, Ambika Soni, Motilal Vora, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Mallikarjun Kharge, Anand Sharma and Kumari Selja.
He has also convened the first meeting of the extended CWC on July 22 to chalk out the party's future strategy.
Former party chief Sonia Gandhi and former prime minister Manmohan Singh, Gandhi has included all former Congress chief ministers Ashok Gehlot, Oomen Chandy, Tarun Gogoi, Siddharamaiah and Harish Rawat.
Other prominent exclusions are Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, who was earlier a permanent invitee to the body, former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, former Himachal chief minister Virbhadra Singh and party veterans Mohan Prakash, Oscar Fernandes, C P Joshi and Mohsina Kidwai. However, Hooda's son Deepender Singh has been made a special invitee.
Among the new faces are Mukul Wasnik, Avinash Pande, KC Venugopal, Dipak Babaraia, Tamradhwaj Sahu, Gaikhangam and Ashok Gehlot, whom he has also made party general secretaries.
The permanent invitees include former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit, P Chidambaram, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Randeep Surjewala, Balasaheb Thorat, Tariq Hameed Karra and P C Chacko.
The new Congress chief has also included all AICC secretaries in-charge of different states - Jitendra Singh, RPN Singh, PL Punia, Asha Kumari, Rajni Patil, Ram Chandra Khuntia, Anugrah Narayan Singh, Rajeev S Satav, Shaktisinh Gohil, Gaurav Gogoi and A Chella Kumar - as permanent invitees. However, they will only be ex-officio members of the panel.
Among the special invitees to the CWC include KH Muniyappa, Arun Yadav, Deepender Hooda, Jitin Prasada and Kuldeep Bishnoi.
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.
-PTC News
