Rahul constitutes CWC, convenes first meeting on July 22

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 17

Congress president Rahul Gandhi has formed his first Congress Working Committee (CWC) of 23 members, 19 permanent and nine special invitees. Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh was missing from the CWC.

There are four leaders from Haryana in the committee — Kumari Selja, a regular CWC member; Randeep Surjewala, a permanent invitee; Deepender Hooda and Kuldeep Bishnoi, both special invitees

Apart from Capt Amarinder, who was earlier a permanent invitee to the body, other prominent exclusions are former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, former Himachal CM Virbhadra Singh and party veterans Mohan Prakash, Oscar Fernandes, C P Joshi and Mohsina Kidwai. 

The first meeting of the new CWC will be held on July 22.

The CWC is a blend of old and new. All frontal organisation chiefs will be ex-officio members.

The July 22 meeting will be of an 'extended working committee' as Gandhi has also invited all state unit presidents and Congress Legislative Party leaders from states.

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.

The CWC, which acts as an advisory panel on all key decisions of the party, was not in place since the plenary session in March. — With agency inputs