The Hindu : Opinion / News Analysis : AICC revamp: reward and punishment

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jul 19, 2004

Opinion

Opinion - News Analysis

AICC revamp: reward and punishment

By K.V. Prasad

NEW DELHI, JULY 18. Nearly two months after the Congress came to power at the Centre via the coalition route, the party president, Sonia Gandhi, set herself to the task of re-building a team to run the affairs of the All-India Congress Committee.

The much-awaited AICC reshuffle, necessitated by the induction of senior leaders in the United Progressive Alliance Government, was described by the party as an exercise to "synergise" youth and experience for challenges ahead.

The immediate task before the Congress is to prepare for the Assembly elections in Maharashtra and Arunachal Pradesh. The term of the Assemblies in both these States end by October this year even as the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Government in Arunachal Pradesh dissolved the Assembly earlier this month. In February 2005, elections are due in Bihar, Jharkhand and Haryana.

A perusal of the list of new AICC office-bearers and the Congress Working Committee (CWC) indicates that Ms. Gandhi has in some cases rewarded performance and in other cases showed the door to `leaders' of States where results in the recent general elections went against the party. In another stroke, she eased out veteran Congressmen K. Karunakaran and Narayan Dutt Tiwari from the policy making body of the CWC, bringing in G. Venkataswamy and N. Janardhan Reddy from the same category. The last two had gone into a sulk for a while for not being accommodated in the Union Cabinet.

The move was perhaps to send a signal that having given a long rope to the Karunakaran faction, the high command was not willing to give more concessions. Factionalism, a bane of the party in most States, took a heavy toll in the Lok Sabha elections. Barring the Kerala Chief Minister, A.K. Antony, the only other State representative in the CWC is the younger leader, Ramesh Chennithala, who comes in as a permanent invitee with a defined role as manager of party affairs in the northeast.

Besides the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, the presence of senior members of the Union Cabinet such as Arjun Singh, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Pranab Mukherjee, Natwar Singh and Shivraj Patil is understandable. Mohsina Kidwai and Motamma appear to have made it both on account of the need to give greater representation to women and also balance other factors such as caste and minorities. Ironically, representation to the northeast is limited to the former Mizoram Chief Minister, Lalthanhawla, though technically it could be argued that Dr. Singh represents the region in the CWC.

The resurrection of Ajit Jogi was a surprise. Devendranath Dwivedi, who earlier served the party as general secretary and was tipped to head the media department, made it to the CWC only as a permanent invitee while Anil Shastri was accommodated in the policy making body as a special invitee. The 12-member category also includes Imran Kidwai, Satya Behn, Urmilla Patel, Venod Sharma and Parvez Hashmi.

In the overall reshuffle, two key persons in Ms. Gandhi's team continue to hold their positions — Ahmed Patel as her political secretary and Ambika Soni, who while continuing as the general secretary gets charge of the Congress president's office, CWC, AICC and central election committee. She takes the portfolio held earlier by Oscar Fernandes, now a Minister. However, it also puts in place an organisational arrangement for Ms. Soni, who last year was divested of the charge of political secretary.

The decision to ask Pranab Mukherjee to handle the affairs of Punjab shows that no one else in the organisation could measure up to the task. Mr. Mukherjee is the only one to be saddled both with the job of senior Cabinet Minister handling Defence and guiding the affairs of the party in a sensitive border State. The official explanation was that Mr. Mukherjee's experience in steering the party affairs in the State, once too often in the past, would be crucial at a time when Punjab appears to have created a Centre-State problem.

The general secretary, Margaret Alva, has a challenge straightaway for the Maharashtra Assembly elections where the Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena combine has a head start in terms of preparation. The work of Satyavrat Chaturvedi as the party manager of Uttar Pradesh affairs would be under intense scrutiny. He has to walk into a political minefield with factional fights competing with caste combination and uneasy relations with the ruling Samajwadi Party that the Congress supports from the outside and a fiercely independent Bahujan Samaj Party. It is a State where the Congress is hoping for a revival and one that elected Ms. Gandhi and her son, Rahul Gandhi. The stakes are high.

CWC member Janardhan Dwivedi, considered the backroom manager, gets an opportunity to prove his political mettle in Haryana, a State where the Congress appears to be on a comeback, provided the party is able to undo the political damage the standoff with Punjab on river-water sharing has done. Harikesh Bahadur may too have to do a tightrope walk in Bihar where the Congress has an alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal of Lalu Prasad and Lok Janshakti Party of Ram Vilas Paswan, who is keen to chart an independent course, and in Jharkhand where it has ties with the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha of Shibu Soren.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Opinion

News Update

Stories in this Section

INCOMPLETE INVESTIGATIONS

TESTING THE WATERS

Peace on the guillotine, again

Intelligence loses its reputation

China and SAARC

AICC revamp: reward and punishment

Continuity in foreign policy

Kumbakonam tragedy

Thatched roof

Teachers' responsibility

Disturbing images

Protest in Manipur