New Delhi: The Congress Tuesday formed a ‘National Alliance Committee’, hours before a meeting of the INDIA alliance in the national capital.
The five-member committee comprises party veterans who have had long associations with leaders of most of the INDIA bloc parties. The move indicates that the Congress is keen to show its commitment to the grouping, many of whose constituents have criticised it for stalling seat-sharing talks ahead of the latest assembly elections in order to gauge the results first.
Former chief ministers Ashok Gehlot and Bhupesh Baghel, who lost their respective states in the polls, are in the new committee. Former Union minister Mukul Wasnik is set to be convener, while the remaining two members are former external affairs minister Salman Khurshid and Congress Working Committee member Mohan Prakash.
“In the run-up to the general elections 2024, the Congress president has constituted a National Alliance Committee…with immediate effect,” party general secretary (organisation) K.C. Venugopal said in a press release.
The announcement came ahead of Tuesday’s INDIA alliance meeting, where heads of 28 opposition parties are gathering. One of the key issues on the table is seat-sharing, which many believe is the main challenge for the bloc.
For Gehlot and Baghel, this is their first assignment after the defeats in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. Meanwhile, this will be Wasnik’s first major assignment after he was relieved of his duties as general secretary in-charge of Madhya Pradesh last September. In Wasnik’s home state Maharashtra, the Congress is already in alliance with Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) and the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).
The appointments also mark the return of Salman Khurshid as he gets a major organisational role in the party after a long time.
Mohan Prakash, considered a Rahul Gandhi loyalist — he once compared Gandhi to Jayaprakash Narayan — has previously been in charge of many states such as Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. He also headed the coordination committee for the Rajasthan polls.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
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