M A I N   N E W S

Cong makes key changes, Cabinet expansion today
Ministerial berths likely for Oscar Fernandes, Birender Singh
KV Prasad/TNS

New Delhi, June 16
The Congress today effected major organisational changes as it prepared to reshuffle the Union Council of Ministers on Monday, hoping these changes will inject new enthusiasm into the party and provide greater momentum to governance in the run-up to the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

The new AICC team saw senior Punjab leader Ambika Soni making a comeback and induction of CP Joshi and Ajay Maken, who resigned from the Union Cabinet, as general secretaries while Oscar Fernandes, Vilas Muttemwar and Ghulam Nabi Azad have been relieved of the responsibility. Jagdish Tytler does not find a place in the new set-up.

AiCC Rejig Vocal leader Digvijay Singh shunted out from the charge of the party in Uttar Pradesh; given charge of Karnataka, Goa and Andhra Pradesh General secretaries Oscar Fernandes, Vilas Muttemwar and Ghulam Nabi Azad relieved of the responsibility Jagdish Tytler does not find a place in the new set-up

The Union Council of Ministers is scheduled to be expanded tomorrow evening to fill Cabinet vacancies created by the recent resignations and the exit of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK).

Oscar Fernandes is being re-inducted into the Cabinet while Birender Singh from Haryana and Sis Ram Ola from Rajasthan are expected to make an entry, sources said. Mallikarjun Kharge may be shifted to Railways.

President Pranab Mukherjee has accepted the resignations of Joshi, Minister of Road Transport and Railways, a portfolio he took over after Pawan Bansal was forced to quit last month, and Maken, Minister of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation.

Both Joshi and Maken were drafted for party work. They figure in the Congress Working Committee (CWC), the highest decision-making body, which also saw the entry of Gurudas Kamat of Maharashtra, who had put in his papers from the Union Council of Ministers upset over portfolio allocation in an earlier reshuffle.

Maken, with Priya Dutt as the secretary, will be responsible for the newly-created Communication, Publicity and Information wing that includes the media department. Joshi has been given responsibility of the states of Assam, Bihar, West Bengal and Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The task entrusted to these two is expected to build their profiles ahead of the Assembly polls in Delhi and Rajasthan, a state to which Joshi belongs.

Digvijay Singh has been shifted from Uttar Pradesh to look after Andhra Pradesh, Goa and Karnataka while Madhusudan Mistry, who is credited with scripting the team that wrested Karnataka, has been entrusted with UP and the party's Central Election Committee.

Janardan Dwivedi, divested of media, will now take care of organisation, CWC and AICC while Mohan Prakash, who was responsible for Gujarat and J&K, will look after poll-bound Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.

Haryana MP Birender Singh, Punjab's Jagmeet Singh Brar and Gulchain Singh Charak, incharge of party affairs in Punjab, have been dropped from the CWC while former Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh finds a place as a permanent invitee and Mohinder Singh Kaypee as a special invitee.

Five months after taking over as vice-president, Rahul Gandhi brought about changes in the set up bringing in new faces as All India Congress Committee secretaries. These include Rakesh Kalia from Himachal Pradesh, Punjab MLAs Kuljit Singh Nagra, Ashwani Sekhri and Kishore Lal Sharma.

Under the new allocation of work, Shakeel Ahmed will be the general secretary incharge of party affairs in Delhi (where Assembly polls are due later this year), Punjab, Haryana and the union territory of Chandigarh. Nagra, Asha Kumari of Himachal Pradesh and Harish Choudhary from Rajasthan are the secretaries attached to the office.

Besides being asked to look after work in the Congress President's Office, Ambika Soni will be taking care of party affairs Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand with Geetashree Oraon, Mainul Haque and Sanjay Kapoor as secretaries.

Haryana MPs Ashok Tanwar and Avtar Bhadana have been retained as Secretaries with the former attacked to Kamat and the latter unattached.

A senior leader remarked that the changes in the organisation showed that this is a new generation takeover, as the average age of the apex policy-making body of the party, the CWC, is now 52, while it was much higher earlier. The changes were also made under the one-man, one-post principle. Rahul has kept charge of front organisations with Prabha Kishor Taviad and Suraj Hegde set to help him as secretaries.