Ten months after taking charge as Congress president, Mallikarjun Kharge constituted the new Congress Working Committee (CWC) Sunday, inducting Shashi Tharoor, who contested against him in the party presidential elections last year, young leaders Sachin Pilot and Gaurav Gogoi, and former Chief Ministers Ashok Chavan and Charanjit Singh Channi into the highest decision-making body of the Congress. With Lok Sabha elections just months away, the exercise is being seen as a deft and delicate balancing act by Kharge. He also brought in former Gujarat Congress president Jagdish Thakor, former Jammu and Kashmir Congress chief Ghulam Ahmad Mir, Gujarat leader Deepak Babaria, West Bengal leader Deepa Dasmunsi, former Andhra Pradesh Congress chief N Raghuveera Reddy, Chhattisgarh Home Minister Tamradhwaj Sahu, Rajya Sabha MP Syed Naseer Hussain, young Madhya Pradesh MLA Kamleshwar Patel and Rajasthan Minister Mahendrajeet Singh Malviya into the enlarged 39-member main CWC. The new CWC has 39 regular members, 32 permanent invitees and 13 special invitees – a total of 84. I am honoured by the decision of the @INCIndia President Shri Mallikarjun @Kharge ji and the Congress central leadership to nominate me to the Working Committee. As one who is aware of the historic role played by the CWC in guiding the party over the last 138 years, I am humbled… — Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) August 20, 2023 The inclusion of Tharoor and Pilot are significant. By inducting Tharoor, Kharge has sent a signal that he has taken the electoral battle in the spirit of inner-party democracy. Pilot’s elevation is aimed at sending two messages. That the party values Pilot, despite rebuffing his Chief Ministerial ambitions, and his key role in Rajasthan politics. It also takes pressure off Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot ahead of the state Assembly elections likely in November-December this year. At the Raipur AICC session in February this year, the party had decided to increase the size of the CWC from 23 to 35 – plus the president, chairperson of the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP), Prime Minister or former Prime Ministers, leaders of the Congress in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha and former party presidents. The main body, however, is packed with veterans. कांग्रेस वर्किंग कमेटी (CWC) का सदस्य बनाए जाने पर मैं आदरणीय कांग्रेस अध्यक्ष श्री मल्लिकार्जुन खरगे जी, CPP चेयरपर्सन श्रीमती सोनिया गांधी जी एवं पूर्व अध्यक्ष श्री राहुल गांधी जी का आभार व्यक्त करता हूं। हम सभी कांग्रेस की रीति-नीति व विचारधारा को सशक्त करते हुए उसे और अधिक… — Sachin Pilot (@SachinPilot) August 20, 2023 At its Udaipur chintan shivir in May last year, the party felt that 50 per cent of members of all committees – from CWC to block committees – must be below the age of 50. But it nuanced the declaration in Raipur, amending its constitution to say that 50 per cent of the 35 members shall be from the SC, ST, OBC, minorities, youth and women. The party constitution is binding while a declaration is not. The main body reflects the Dalit, tribal, backward and minority representation and some of the leaders have perhaps managed to find a place based on that permutation and combination. In the 39-member body, only three – Pilot, Gogoi and Patel – are below the age of 50. Kharge also inducted several leaders as permanent invitees. Among them are former Karnataka Chief Minister M Veerappa Moily, Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari, Tripura’s Sudeep Roy Burman, Kerala’s Ramesh Chennithala, Karnataka’s B K Hariprasad, Himachal Pradesh Congress chief Pratibha Singh, former Goa Congress chief Girish Chodankar, bureaucrat-turned-politician K Raju, former Mumbai mayor Chandrakant Handore, Madhya Pradesh’s Meenakshi Natarajan, Rajya Sabha MP Phulo Devi Netam, former Deputy Chief Minister of undivided Andhra Pradesh Damodar Raja Narasimha, and Mohan Prakash. None of the Chief Ministers are included in the CWC but they are generally invited to all crucial meetings of the top decision-making body. Most members of the previous CWC have been retained. And they include Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Manmohan Singh, A K Antony, Ambika Soni, K C Venugopal, Mukul Wasnik, P Chidambaram, Anand Sharma, Tariq Anwar, Ajay Maken, Kumari Selja, Abhishek Singhvi, Gaikhangam, Lal Thanhawla and Randeep Singh Surjewala. Sharma, Tharoor, Moily, Wasnik and Tewari were all signatories to the letter 23 senior Congress leaders had written in 2020 to Sonia Gandhi, seeking sweeping changes in the party. While Chavan was inducted, another former Chief Minister and G23 leader Prithviraj Chavan was not included. The significant omissions are that of Rajasthan leader Raghuveer Singh Meena from the main CWC and Uttar Pradesh leaders Pramod Tiwari and P L Punia, the latter earlier in charge of Chhattisgarh, and K H Muniyappa as permanent invitees to the CWC. While senior Karnataka leader K H Muniyappa has been dropped as a permanent invitee, former UP Congress chief Ajay Kumar Lallu has also been dropped as a special invitee. Former Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat has been dropped from the main CWC but retained as permanent invitee. Shaktisinh Gohil, who was recently appointed president of the Gujarat Congress, was dropped as a permanent invitee. Karnataka ministers Dinesh Gundu Rao and H K Patil have been dropped. Rao is in-charge of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry and Patil is in-charge of Maharashtra. Their omission means they will soon be replaced as in-charges as well since they have become ministers. Several leaders, who were earlier permanent invitees, have found place in the main body of 39 – among them Congress leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, Meira Kumar, Digvijaya Singh, Salman Khurshid and Jairam Ramesh. A host of fresh faces have been brought in as special invitees – among them former HRD minister Pallam Raju, Lok Sabha MP and Congress whip in the House Kodikunnil Suresh, Congress media department head Pawan Khera, digital media head Supriya Shrinate, former Uttarakhand Congress chief Ganesh Godiyal, Maharashtra MLAs Yoshomati Thakur and Praniti Shinde, Delhi leader Alka Lamba and AICC secretary Vamshi Chand Reddy. Young leader Kanhaiya Kumar finds a place as in-charge of the NSUI. All state in-charge were included in the CWC separately as also the heads of the Youth Congress, Mahila Congress, NSUI and Sevadal as ex-officio members. Kharge has tried to balance several state equations. For instance, he has inducted Himachal Pradesh Congress chief Pratibha Singh as a permanent invitee. She had lost the race for Chief Minister’s post to Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu. Sahu’s elevation as CWC member is significant in view of the forthcoming Assembly elections in Chhattisgarh. He, Bhupesh Baghel and T S Singh Deo were in the race for the Chief Minister’s post in 2018. The party recently made Deo the Deputy Chief Minister to placate him. Thakor’s accommodation is also part of the balancing act. He was recently replaced as Gujarat Congress chief after the party’s poor show in the Assembly elections. Then there was a musical chair of sorts. While Soni was retained and Channi was inducted in the main CWC, Tewari was included as a permanent invitee. All three are from Punjab. Similarly, while A K Antony, AICC general secretary (Organisation) K C Venugopal and Tharoor are in the main CWC, another Kerala veteran Ramesh Chennithala was brought as a permanent invitee and Kodikunnil Suresh as special invitee. While Malviya was brought in from Rajasthan, Meena was dropped. The CWC main body also has two other leaders from Rajasthan – Pilot and Jitendra Singh. While Moily and Hariprasad were inducted as permanent invitees, Muniyappa was dropped. All three are from Karnataka. Dasmunsi’s elevation too is interesting. A known critic of West Bengal Chief Mamata Banerjee, her induction signals that she might be asked to re-enter electoral politics in West Bengal.
