Thaindian News

New Delhi, March 4 (IANS) Congress president Sonia Gandhi retained most of the senior leaders in her team of office bearers unveiled Friday, with the long-awaited announcement not springing any major surprises.

The exercise, done keeping in view intra-party equations in the states and caste and regional balances, has seen senior state leaders, including Birender Singh and Madhusudan Mistry, finding a place in the Congress Working Committee (CWC), the party’s top decision making body.

Though six leaders have been dropped from the CWC, most senior leaders have retained their places.

Party leaders said that the principle of one-third reservation for women does not apply to CWC and but there are few women in the team announced Friday.

There is no woman among the nine general secretaries, but three among 19 members of the working committee and two among permanent invitees to the working committee. There is no woman among the five special invitees to the CWC.

There are five women among the 33 secretaries announced Friday.

While some of the ministers holding charge of states have not been repeated, two ministers - Ghulam Nabi Azad and Mukul Wasnik - continue as general secretaries.

Azad, in fact, has been given charge of Andhra Pradesh, which is electorally crucial for Congress and is witnessing an agitation over the demand for a separate Telangana state. Azad is also incharge of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.

There has not been any change in the profile and role of Rahul Gandhi, who is seen as a possible prime ministerial candidate at the next Lok Sabha polls in 2014.

Sonia Gandhi has elevated leaders like Mohan Prakash and Jagmeet Singh Brar by giving them charge of states. There has been some surpise in party circles over appointment of lesser-known faces likes Dhani Ram Shandil, a former MP, and Gulchain Singh Charak, a party leader from Jammu and Kashmir, as incharges of states.

Uttar Pradesh, which will to go assembly polls in 2012, has found good representation in the CWC. Apart from both the Gandhis, who are MPs from the state, the extended working committee has three other MPs, including Beni Prasad Verma, Nirmal Khatri and Raj Babbar.

As many as 18 leaders have been dropped as AICC secretaries from the previous team that had 38 members. Former Youth Congress chief Ashok Tanwar, who has worked with Rahul Gandhi, has been been made a secretary. Party observers said that some young party leaders and known faces such as Priya Dutt had been taken in as secretaries.

The new team of secretaries announced Friday includes party MPs Avinash Pande, Bhakta Charan Das, Jitendra Singh, Sanjay Nirupam, Meenakshi Natarajan, Parvez Hashmi, Priya Dutt, R.C. Khuntia, Tarachand Bhagora, V.Hanumantha Rao, Avtar Singh Bhadana and Vijay Lakshmi Sadho.

It also includes Abdul Mannan Ansari, Anees Ahmed, Mirza Irshad Baig, Jayadev Jena, K. Jayakumar, K. B. Krishnamurthy, Manish Chatrath, P.Sudhakar Reddy, Praveen Rashtrapal, Sagar Rayka, Sanjay Bapna, Sanjay Bhoi, Shanimol Usman, Shantaram Naik, Maj Ved Prakash, Vinay Kumar Sorake, Vivek Bansal, Deepak Babaria, Asha Kumari and Pankaj Sharma.

Special invitees to the working committee include INTUC president G. Sanjeeva Reddy, former Punjab Congress chief Mohinder Singh Kaypee, Raj Babbar, Khatri and Anil Shastri.