Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Sep 12: Apparently performing a balancing act to keep both the dissenters and the supporters in good humour, the Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi has reshuffled the long-overdue organizational set-up of the party without showing any “malice towards her critics.”
The reshuffle come in the wake of an unprecedented letter written by 23 senior leaders last month demanding sweeping changes in the party and appointment of a “full time and effective leadership” which was both “visible” and “active” in the field and her assurance at the hurriedly convened Congress Working Committee meeting on August 24 that she and the party would “put the past behind and move forward unitedly’.”
Several of the 23 senior leaders who many believed might face the party’s wrath for “challenging” the leadership, particularly the Gandhi family, have been promoted in the reshuffle while others were accommodated in key committees including the one most important committee constituted to assist her in organisational and operational matters till a new party president and the panel to hold organisational elections are appointed.
Many party leaders including some from the “dissenters” group said Mrs Gandhi had “pulled off a fine balancing act,” with both sides asserting that they were “satisfied.” While the younger lot seen in the Rahul Gandhi camp asserted that the dissenters had been “cut to size,” one of the letter writers said they were happy that the party president had lived up to her promise to forget the past and move forward unitedly.
One most doubtful case was that of the leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad, the senior-most among the 23 leaders who had signed the letter. He was stripped of the post of general secretary and the charge of Haryana, but retained as a full member of the CWC. However, stripping him of general secretary’s post was not a punishment, as a senior party leader claimed, as Azad had told her nearly a year ago that he would not like to continue as general secretary.
Similarly, Anand Sharma, another prominent signatory in the letter, has also been retained as a full member of the CWC.
Besides, several other senior leaders and her strong supporters too were removed as general secretaries, including Ambika Soni, one of the most vocal critics of dissenters, as well as and Mallikarjun Kharge, Motilal Vora and Luizinho Faleiro. The change was interpreted as phasing out of the old and induction of young leaders in the AICC Secretariat.
Ambika Soni, too, has been accommodated, as a member of the committee that would assist the Congress president and so was Mukul Wasnik, another big name among the 23, who also find a place in the six-member committee to assist her and has also been retained as general secretary in charge of Madhya Pradesh though the charge of Kerala and Tamil Nadu taken away from him. He will also continue in the CWC by virtue of him being a general secretary.
Some party sources said Sonia Gandhi had been in touch with Azad, Sharma, Wasnik and a few other senior leaders in the last few days. Jitin Prasada, who was among the young signatories to the letter, has been made in charge of West Bengal, which goes to elections next year. While those among the letter writers argued that Prasada’s elevation was a signal that Sonia holds no grudge against them, those close to Rahul contended Prasada had conveyed to the leadership that he never intended to challenge the Gandhis and that he had signed the letter without any mala fide.
Arvinder Singh Lovely, the former president of the Delhi Congress, who was also among the 23 signatories to the letter, has find a place in the reconstituted Central Election Authority chaired by the former party Rajya Sabha member from Gujarat Madhusudan Mistry who was refused a re-nomination in March.
