New Delhi: The Congress Party on Saturday revved up its poll-preparedness by making key appointments to its Manifesto, Coordination and Publicity Committees. The choices which were discussed and decided upon at the party’s core committee meeting in the morning showed Congress President Rahul Gandhi’s reliance on experience with former Union Ministers P. Chidambaram, Jairam Ramesh, A.K. Antony and Anand Sharma making it to the list.
While Chidamabaram has been appointed as the head of the Manifesto Committee, Mr Antony would chair the Coordination Committee and Anand Sharma would be heading the Publicity Committee. Mr Ramesh would be the convener of the Coordination Committee, Mr Pawan Khera would be the convenor of the Publicity Committee and Prof Rajiv Gowda, who heads the Party’s Research Cell, would be the convenor of the Manifesto Committee.
The various committees which were formed with a view to strengthen the party organisation as well as shore up preparations ahead of the Lok Sabha polls has seen induction of quiet a few young and upcoming leaders but the reliance has been particularly on old guards like Ashok Gehlot, Mr Chidambaram and Ahmed Patel. Mr Patel was also recently appointed as the treasurer of the Party replacing Motilal Vohra.
Some of the other members of the Manifesto Committee are Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Salman Khurshid, Shashi Tharoor, Kumari Selja, Sushmita Dev, Rajeev Gowda, Mukul Sangma, Manpreet Singh Badal, Sam Pitroda and Sachin Rao. The Publicity Committee includes Randeep Surjewala, Manish Tiwari, Pramod Tiwari, Rajeev Shukla, Bhakta Charan Das, Praveen Chakravarty, Milind Deora, Ketkar Kumar, Pawan Khera, V.D. Satheesan, Jaiveer Shergill and Divya Spandana.
Apart from these appointments, the Core Committee meeting, chaired by Mr Gandhi, saw a discussion on all issues, including preparations for the coming Assembly polls five states-Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Mizoram as well as Telangana were discussed, party sources told this newspaper.
