From Our Bureau
NEW DELHI: By bringing former Rajasthan Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot into the newly constituted Congress Working Committee last week and ignoring Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot in the paty’s highest decision making body, Congress President Malikarjun Kharge has sent a clear message that the former is a rising star while the latter is the fading sun.
Rajasthan, which goes for state assembly elections in the next four months, is crucial for the Congress and with this knowledge the party chief has made the move to make Pilot a permanent member of the CWC. Inclusion of former Rajasthan deputy CM Sachin Pilot in the CWC is a clear but subtle message to Gehlot that his bete noire cannot be overlooked.
Absence of Gehlot in party’s highest forum is a conscious step in the background of the humiliation meted out to Kharge and Ajay Maken when the two had been deputed to go to Jaipur by former party president Sonia Gandhi for holding a legislature party meeting to elect Gehlot’s successor. Gehlot’s loyalist MLAs had refused to come for the meeting. This was seen as an act of open defiance but the party high command did not take an immediate action as it did not want to rock the boat.
Gehlot had been sounded by the party top leadership to make way for Pilot and the Rajasthan chief minister was to be elevated as the Congress chief but the former outwitted the party high command.
Which human being can forget that humiliation or should we call insult, observed a senior leader commenting on elevation of Pilot and absence of Gehlot in the CWC.
Kharge, who knows the political waters like a fish, has made the move because he is conscious that outcome of assembly election in Rajasthan is crucial for the party in the background of the Lok Sabha polls in 2024. The BJP is a formidable rival as it deploys all means-fair or foul to win an elections and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already started electioneering in Rajasthan.
With this in mind, Kharge has brought in seven leaders from Rajasthan including Pilot in the working committee. Apart from Pilot, Mahendrajeet Malviya, Jitendra Singh, Harish Chaudhary, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Mohan Prakash, and Pawan Khera have been included from Rajasthan.
Kharge has firmly demonstrated that he is steadily but firmly moving on the path to make the country’s grand old political party battleready for the coming crucial state elections in coming months and the final Lok Sabha electoral exercise early next year.
Structure and composition of the CWC shows that Kharge has made intense and serious efforts to put up a team that can take on challenges of different dimensions and pave the road for resurrection of the party that was being dismissed by political analysts few months back.
The new CWC is a combination of energy and experience. It is both a continuity as well as a change as the Congress leader has brought youth in ample numbers while also keeping experienced leaders on the body. The highest decision making forum has representation from across the country and all important regions find representation in the CWC.
At the same time, the newly formed CWC sends a clear message that having a different view or differing with the party’s leadership is welcome. The working committee giving prominence to youth and leaders from election bound states and inducting dissidents including Lok Sabha MP Shashi Thaoor who contested against Kharge in the October 2022 Congress chief’s election.
The new CWC has 39 regular members, 18 permanent invitees, 14 state in-charges, 9 special invitees, 4 ex officio members. Inclusion of Kanahiya Kumar in the CWC is significant as he is not only a good speaker but ahs a very large following among youth.
While veteran G23 leaders Anand Sharma, Mukul Wasnik and Shashi Tharoor who articulated the need for intra party reforms have been made regular CWC members among 39, Manish Tewari and Veerappa Moily have been inducted afresh as permanent invitees among 18.
Anand Sharma and Wasnik have been retained (they were part of the 49-member steering committee Kharge had formed in the interim before he finalised the CWC) while Tharoor, Tewari and Moily are new entries to the CWC.
The new list features Congress top brass, Kharge, Sonia Gandhi, former PM Manmohan Singh, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Vadra, Ambika Soni, AK Antony, P Chidambaram, Jairam Ramesh among others, as regular members.
Other fresh entries in the regular CWC segment are former Maharashtra CM Ashok Chavan, former Punjab CM Charanjit Channi, N Raghuveera Reddy, senior OBC leader from poll-bound Chhattisgarh Tamradhwaj Sahu, senior Gujarat leader Jagdish Thakor, GA Mir from J&K. Deepa Dasmunshi from West Bengal, wife of late Priyaranjan Dasmunshi, has been brought in with an eye on the state where party’s political fortunes are at the lowest ebb.
Since the CWC has been nominated by party chief Kharge and has not been picked up by elections, there is bound to be some criticism in media but overall composition reflects both foresight and prudence.
Though the Congress’s Steering Committee had said in February this year that it was unanimously decided to authorize the party president to nominate all CWC members but party insiders say that the decision was not unanimous with leaders like Ajay Maken, Abhishek Manu Singhvi and former MP Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh favouring elections at the meeting held in Raipur where the party’s 85the plenary session was held.
The decision to constitute the CWC through nomination instead of elections was taken as Kharge and other top leaders of the party felt that unity is the need of the hour, particularly in the face of a rival like the BJP under duo of Prime Minister Narendra Modi Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
Conscious of the fact that the BJP will go to any extent to retain power and is not shy of deploying any means-fair or foul, it was felt to nominate as elections bring out competitions into open sharpening differences in views and approach which is often highlighted by sensation mongering media as divisions and disunity.
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