New Delhi, June 19
Congress President Sonia Gandhi today took first steps in the long-awaited overhaul of the AICC by appointing two new permanent invitees to the Congress Working Committee and giving them charge of the states which were being handled by leaders who had been inducted into the Union Cabinet.
Senior party leader R.K Dhawan has been put in charge of Himachal Pradesh, a state which will face Assembly elections next year. Former Meghalaya Governor M.M Jacob has been given charge of Jammu and Kashmir and Karnataka. Assembly polls are due in Jammu and Kashmir towards the end of next year.
Demands were coming from these
states for appointment of full-time general secretaries as tourism minister Ambika Soni, who was in charge of Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, and defence minister A.K Antony, who was in charge of Karnataka, were apparently unable to spare enough time for organisational affairs due to their pre-occupation with government work. Soni, a party general secretary, had joined the Cabinet in January last year while Antony, CWC member, was made a union minister in October last year. Both Dhawan and Jacob have been made permanent invitees to the
CWC.
The Congress recently suffered a blow in Himachal Pradesh by losing the by-election to Hamirpur Lok Sabha seat to the BJP by a wide margin. With factionalism having reared its head again in the state unit, the party is keen to put its house in order before the Assembly polls.
The party has to take on a resurgent BJP which has been attempting to discredit the state Congress leadership by raking up the CD episode. Dhawan has handled Himachal Pradesh in the past and has personal equations with all Congress leaders of the state.
In Jammu and Kashmir, the Congress needed a senior leader to work with Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, who is heading a coalition government. The ruling alliance, which had to contend with the possibility of PDP pulling out over its demand of troop reduction a few months back, saw Panthers Party of Bhim Singh snapping its ties with the coalition on Sunday.
