The Hindu : National : Azad, Faleiro get key tasks ahead of polls

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Azad, Faleiro get key tasks ahead of polls

K.V. Prasad

NEW DELHI: With the general elections round the corner, the Congress party on Thursday night effected a reshuffle, inducting the former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad, and the former Goa Chief Minister, Luizinho Faleiro, into the All-India Congress Committee with key responsibilities of States.

Mr. Azad was brought back as party general secretary and given charge of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Orissa and Puducherry, changing the work allocation of almost all other general secretaries. Mr. Faleiro will be a CWC member and look after Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Sikkim.

They fill the vacancies created by the exit of Ashok Gehlot and Margaret Alva. The former Karnataka Minister, Mallikarjuna Kharge, has also been inducted into the CWC.

The former Union Home Minister, Shivraj Patil, who resigned from the Cabinet in the wake of the November 26, Mumbai terror attacks, has been drafted to work in the organisation and made the chairman of screening committee for the Lok Sabha for Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Nagaland and Tripura.

B.K. Hariprasad, Digvijaya Singh, Janardan Dwivedi, Mohsina Kidwai, Mukul Wasnik, Prithiviraj Chavan, Rahul Gandhi and V. Narayansamy are the other general secretaries who continue.

The party also inducted the former Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee chief, K. Keshava Rao, as a permanent invitee to the CWC in place of Rajahmundry MP V. Aruna Kumar.

Mr. Rahul Gandhi will continue to be in charge of the Youth Congress and the National Students Union of India with Jitender Singh and Meenakshi Natarajan as secretaries.

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