Following the crushing defeat in three crucial Hindi heartland states, the Congress party in a major rejig in its organisation structure has relieved Priyanka Gandhi Vadra from her duty of Congress General Secretary in charge of Uttar Pradesh. As per the new press release by the Congress party, she has been replaced by Avinash Pande as the new General Secretary in charge for the grand old party in Uttar Pradesh which sends the most number of MPs in the General elections.
However, Priyanka Gandhi will remain a General Secretary of the party without any assigned portfolio, the statement issued by the Congress party said. The reorganisation came 2 days after a meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) chaired by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and attended by senior leaders including Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi.
As per the reshuffle, Sachin Pilot has now been appointed as the All India Congress Committee (AICC) General Secretary in charge of Chhattisgarh while senior leaders Mukul Vasnik, and Randeep Singh Surjewala have been appointed as in charge for Gujarat and Karnataka respectively. Kumari Selja, who was earlier in charge of the Chhattisgarh Congress, has now been given the responsibility of the hill state, Uttarakhand.
Congress has assigned responsibilities for different states and union territories to various leaders: Arunachal Pradesh to Dr. Chellakumar, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, and Puducherry to Dr. Ajoy Kumar, Jammu and Kashmir to Bharatsingh Solanki, Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh to Rajeev Shukla, Rajasthan to Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, Punjab to Devender Yadav, Goa, Daman and Diu, and Dadra and Nagar Haveli to Manikrao Thakre, and Tripura, Sikkim, Manipur, Nagaland, Andhra Pradesh, and Andaman and Nicobar to Girish Chodankar.
Meanwhile, several organisational posts have remained unchanged as Jairam Ramesh and KC Venugopal will continue in their roles as General Secretary in charge of communication, and in charge of the organisation respectively. Similarly, senior Congress leader Ajay Maken will continue as the treasurer of AICC.
The party has appointed 12 General Secretaries and 11 state in-charges. Incidentally, Priyanka Gandhi has not been allocated any ‘portfolio’ in the party’s organisational structure amid speculations that the party may be mulling the idea to field her against Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Varanasi constituency, as reportedly pitched by TMC Supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
It is notable that, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has been made a member of the 16-member Manifesto Committee for the 2024 general elections, which will be chaired by P Chidambaram.
While her removal has triggered speculations over her role in the upcoming Lok Sabha election, if the party fails to appoint her in an alleviated role, it will be seen as a major indictment against her ‘leadership skills’. Despite being at the helm of affairs in the politically dominant state since 2019, Congress is not being considered in the poll fray in Uttar Pradesh, a state that in an electoral sense is touted as the master key for the Lok Sabha elections.