Congress reshuffles leaders across states as LS polls approach, Priyanka relieved as UP in-charge

Sachin Pilot has been made in charge of Chhattisgarh in place of Kumari Selja who moves to Uttarakhand. Surjewala will remain the party's Karnataka in-charge.

New Delhi: Congress on Saturday made the much awaited rejig of its organisation with the inclusion of four new General Secretaries, including Sachin Pilot, and finding a replacement for Priyanka Gandhi Vadra in Uttar Pradesh, which she is not keen on continuing at.

Nixing speculation, party president Mallikarjun Kharge also retained K C Venugopal as the crucial General Secretary (Organisation), a post the Kerala leader has been holding for the past five years, and Jairam Ramesh as General Secretary (Communications).

General Secretary Tariq Anwar, who was in charge of Kerala and Lakshadweep, and in-charges Bhakta Charan Das (Bihar, Manipur and Mizoram), Rajani Patil (Jammu and Kashmir), Harish Chaudhary (Punjab) and Manish Chathrath (Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya) have been dropped.

The new team for Kharge, who completed 14 months as party chief, has been on the works for some time and was accelerated after the party’s debacle in the recent Assembly elections and keeping the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in mind.

The party has also appointed Milind Deora and Vijay Inder Singla as Joint Treasurers to help Ajay Maken, who was recently appointed Treasurer in place of Pawan Bansal.

Priyanka, who had quit as the in-charge of UP soon after the party’s dismal performance in the state polls, will remain a General Secretary but has not been assigned any specific state. There has been speculation that she would be given a crucial role in election management and campaign.

Avinash Pande will now look after Uttar Pradesh after being shifted from Jharkhand, which is assigned to GA Mir, a new General Secretary who will also have West Bengal as additional charge.

One of the prominent appointments among General Secretaries is Sachin Pilot, who was earlier made a Congress Working Committee member with the party deciding to induct young blood. It will also signal a generational change in Rajasthan politics where Ashok Gehlot holds one end of the pole.

Pilot has been asked to look after Chhattisgarh, where Kumari Selja was in-charge. She has now been moved to Uttarakhand, after the party lost the Chhattisgarh Assembly elections.

Randeep Surjewala will continue to be in-charge of Karnataka but has given up additional charge of Madhya Pradesh, which will now be looked after by Jitendra Singh, who remains in-charge of Assam as well.

Dipak Babaria has got a promotion as General Secretary and will continue to look after Delhi and Haryana affairs while Deepa Dasmunsi too was appointed General Secretary, with Kerala and Lakshadweep under her belt.

She will have additional charge of Telangana, which was looked after by Manikrao Thakre, who will be in-charge of Goa, Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli.

Mukul Wasnik will continue to be Gujarat in-charge, while Manickam Tagore, who was shifted to Goa from Telangana earlier, has now been made in-charge of Andhra Pradesh and Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

The newly-appointed in-charges include senior Kerala leader Ramesh Chennithala (Maharashtra), Mohan Prakash (Bihar), Bharatsinh Solanki (Jammu and Kashmir) and Girish Chodankar (Tripura, Sikkim, Manipur and Nagaland).

Ajoy Kumar, who was looking after Sikkim, Nagaland and Tripura, has been assigned Odisha and additional charge of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. Rajeev Shukla, who is in-charge of Himachal Pradesh, has also been assigned Chandigarh.

Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa will remain in-charge of Rajasthan while Gurdeep Singh Sappal will be in-charge of Administration.

Syed Nasir Husain has been appointed in-charge of Congress president’s office while Pranav Jha, a coordinator in the Congress president’s office, has been appointed as AICC Secretary and in-charge of communications of the Congress president’s office.