Jitin Prasada and the former head of the UP Congressional Committee, Raj Babbar, were signatories of a letter addressed to the interim president of the party, Sonia Gandhi.
Congressional leader and former Union Minister Salman Khurshid will head the manifesto committee.
- News18
- Last update: September 7, 2020 9:08 am IST
- FOLLOW US:
The Indian National Congress announced panels on Sunday evening in the run-up to the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections and former Union Minister Salman Khursheed was tasked with heading the Manifesto Committee. In a key development, dissidents, including Jitin Prasada and the former head of the UP Congressional Committee, Raj Babbar, who signed a letter to the party’s acting president, Sonia Gandhi, have been left out. However, Congressmen Nirmal Khatri and Naseeb Pathan, who had criticized the letter writers, have been assigned key responsibilities.
A look at the newly announced committees reveals that the party has carefully crafted a mix of veterans and young leaders. Last year, during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the then head of Congress, Rahul Gandhi, announced that his sister Priyanka Gandhi had been tasked with reviving the party in the state from which it originated. Rahul had expressed her confidence in her sister and said that Congress would play a crucial role in shaping the government in the state in 2022.
Congressional loyalist and former Union minister Salman Khursheed will lead the team that creates the party’s manifesto for the polls. Other names on the Manifesto Committee include PL Punia, Aradhana Mishra Mona, Vivek Bansal, Supriya Srinate, and Amitabh Dubey. The Extension Committee is made up of the veteran leader Pramod Tiwari, Pradip Jain Aditya, Gajraj Singh, Naseemuddin Siddiqui, Imran Masood, Bal Kumar Patel. Meanwhile, the Membership Committee will include Anugrah Narayan Singh, Ajay Kapoor, BL Khabri, Mohd Muqeem, Kamal Kishor Commando and Ajay Rai.
The Party’s Program Implementation Committee will include Noor Bano, Harender Malik, Praveen Aron, Jitendra Singh, Balkrishna Chauhan, Naseeb Pathan, Banshi Pahadia, Ram Jiyawan and Preeta Harit, while the Training and Squad Development Committee has the former chief from the UPCC, Nirmal Khatri, Harendra Agarwal, Hanuman Tripathi, Satish Rai, Dolly Sharma and Keshav Chand Yadav.
Taking into account the upcoming Panchayat polls in the state, Congress also announced the Electoral Committee of Panchayat Raj, consisting of Rajesh Misha, Zafar Ali Naqvi, Rajaram Pal, Pradeep Mathur, Vinod Chaturvedi, Masood Akhtar and Ajay Pal Singh. The Media and Communication Advisory Committee will include veterans such as Rashid Alvi, Akhilesh Pratap Singh, Virendra Madan along with Lalitesh Pati Tripathi, Surendra Rajput and Omkar Singh.
In a move unprecedented in the history of the Indian National Congress, 23 senior leaders wrote a letter to party chief Sonia Gandhi last month, calling for “radical changes” in the party. The list included five former chief ministers, Acting MPs Shashi Tharoor and Manish Tewari, members of the Congressional Labor Committee and more than a dozen former union ministers with years of political experience.
.
