One-third of AICC members should be women: Sonia

Congress president approves appointment of 11 PCC chiefs

Former chief minister Amrinder Singh has been appointed chief of the party’s unit in of Punjab. He will succeed Mohinder Singh Kay Pee, who, like R V Deshpande in Karnataka, lost his job.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi is also understood to have sent words down the line that utmost effort should be made to ensure that women constitute one-third of the newly constituted pradesh Congress committees and All India Congress Committees.
Oscar Fernandes, who heads the party’s Central Election Authority, said Sonia Gandhi had appointed presidents of the 11 PCCs across the country, including in Karnataka and Punjab.

Sonia Gandhi had been authorised by the PCCs in the Karnataka, Punjab and nine other States to appoint chiefs of party units there. She also approved election of PCC presidents in seven other States on Wednesday. The seven States include Nagaland, which also got a new PCC chief. 

The party retained its Uttar Pradesh unit chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi, despite serious bid to dislodge her by a faction led by Pramod Tiwari who leads the Congress Legislature Party in the northern State.

But Tiwari’s attempts failed to gain any momentum and two other probables — Sri Prakash Jaiswal and Faizabad MP Nirmal Khetri — made it clear that they were not interested in heading the party’s state units.

The 11 PCC presidents approved by Sonia Gandhi include Bhubaneshwar Kallta in Assam, Kaul Singh Thakur in Himachal Pradesh, Ramesh Chennithala in Kerala, A V Subramanium in Pudducherry, Yashpal Arya in Uttarakhand, Manas Ranjan Bhuyan in West Bengal, Jai Prakash Aggarwal in Delhi and B B Bahl in Chandigarh.

She also approved the results of elections held to the PCCs and to the office of party chiefs of seven States, which include: Nabam Tuki in Arunanchal Pradesh, Galkhangam in Manipur, Friday Lyngdoh in Meghalaya, Lalthanhawla in Mizoram, S I Jamir in Nagaland, Kuldeep Sharma in Andaman and Nicobar Island and Poonikkam Shaikhoya in Lakshdweep.

Some states–including Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Bihar and Jammu and Kashmir — have been left out from the above list as party organisational elections have not been completed.