New Delhi: As the Monsoon Session of Parliament nears its end, the Congress party is getting ready for a major overhaul. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge is all set to order a change of several state unit chiefs as well as state in-charges. The president of the Indian Youth Congress (IYC) will also be replaced as he has completed his term.
The Congress high command has shortlisted seven states -- Kerala, West Bengal, Telangana, Karnataka, Jharkhand, Odisha and Bihar -- where state unit chiefs will be replaced.
Telangana chief minister Revanth Reddy is also the state unit chief. He was in Delhi last month and had also met the party high command. Other senior Telangana leaders have also met with the high command lately to recommend their choice for the new state unit chief. Insiders claim that the high command wants a dalit leader as the state unit chief in Telangana. Several other names are also in the fray, including Lok Sabha MP Balram Naik and the current working president of the state unit Mahesh Goud.
Similarly, in Karnataka, deputy CM D.K. Shivkumar is also serving as the Congress state unit chief. Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah and Mr Shivkumar were in the national capital recently. Both the CM and the deputy CM, along with Karnataka in-charge and general secretary Randeep Surjewala, met the Congress president as well as the senior leadership. The leaders have agreed to change the state unit chief but are waiting for the local body elections to conclude.
In a related development, Congress general secretary organisation K.C. Venugopal met the senior party leaders from West Bengal and sought their views on the new state unit chief. The last incumbent, Adhir Ranjan Chaudhary, has already tendered his resignation. The high command has interacted with almost 25 top state leaders. Senior leaders Deepa Dasmunshi and Abdul Mannan are in the race for the top job.
The party has already dissolved the entire Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee. The Congress fared miserably in the last state elections, winning 14 out of 147 Assembly seats, less than 10 per cent of the total seats. Though it improved its tally by five from nine in 2019 to 14 in 2024, most of its prominent leaders lost. OPCC president Sarat Pattnayak and former state presidents Niranjan Patnaik and Jayadev Jena lost their seats.
In Kerala, the differences between the state unit chief and Lok Sabha MP K. Sudhakaran and other leaders have made the high command sit up and take note. Insiders claim that, due to the infighting, a new state unit president will take over in the coming days.
Similarly, reports are reaching Delhi from Bihar leaders that the state unit chief Akhilesh Prasad Singh has not been able to safeguard the interests of the Congress. He has surrendered to "big brother" RJD in the state. There have been complaints against the Jharkhand chief Rajesh Thakur too.
Jharkhand in-charge G.A. Mir may also be relieved of his duties so that he is able to concentrate on his home state of Jammu and Kashmir, where Assembly elections will likely be announced soon.
Similarly, Deepak Babaria, who is in-charge of Haryana and Delhi, is set to give up Delhi. Devendra Yadav, who is in-charge of Punjab and the state unit chief of Delhi will be relieved from Punjab. Lok Sabha MP from Haryana Kumari Selja is also expected to be relieved of her charge of Uttarakhand.
This will be the first major rejig that will take place in the organisation after the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections.
