India / Cong releases list of Gen Secretaries, drops Ghulam Nabi Azad, Kharge

New Delhi: In a major organizational overhaul, the Congress on Friday dropped some of its senior-most leaders from its list of party general secretaries. The biggest casualty of the day was Ghulam Nabi Azad, leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha.

The changes come against the backdrop of a leadership crisis, an issue that was taken up in a recent meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC).

Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Friday also constituted a six-member special committee to assist her in “organizational and operational matters", including senior leaders A.K. Antony, Ahmed Patel, Ambika Sonia, K.C. Venugopal, Mukul Wasnik and Randeep Singh Surjewala.

Azad was one of the signatories to a letter to Gandhi from 23 Congress leaders highlighting the need for an overhaul of the party for a full-time and effective leadership. Along with Azad four others—Motilal Vora, Ambika Soni, Mallikarjun Kharge and Luizinho Faleiro - too were removed from the post of general secretaries. Of these five, only Vora and Faleiro were dropped from the CWC list.

New inductees to the top decisionmaking body include former finance minister P. Chidambaram, Surjewala, Jitendra Singh and Tariq Anwar. Leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury does not figure in the reconstituted list but is part of the permanent invitee list. Chowdhury was recently appointed chief of the party’s West Bengal unit.

“These changes were long pending and there was a growing demand within the party that changes should be effected. In a way it lays ground for the impending selection of a new Congress president, as Gandhi had mentioned in the previous CWC meeting," a senior leader of the party said requesting anonymity. “The formation of the special committee is expected to take care of the concerns that were being raised in recent times, including assisting the Congress president in the daily affairs of the party. The changes made on Friday reflect an attempt to balance the old guard and young leadership in the party," this leader added.