Congress Reshuffle: Ghulam Nabi Azad, Mallikarjun Kharge Removed As AICC General Secretaries

NEW DELHI: In a major reshuffle of the Congress party, president Sonia Gandhi on Friday removed Ghulam Nabi Azad, the most prominent of the 23 "dissent" letter writers seen to have questioned the leadership of the Gandhis, as AICC general secretary.

Others who have been removed as AICC general secretaries are Motilal Vora, Ambika Soni, Mallikarjun Kharge. Gandhi also removed Luizinho Faleiro as AICC general secretary.

The Congress Working Committee (CWC), which is the party's highest decision-making body, has been reconstituted and appointed P Chidambaram, Randeep Surjewala, Tariq Anwar and Jitendra Singh as its regular members.

The new members in the CWC will replace Faleiro, Vora, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and Tamradhwaj Sahu.

Surjewala has been the biggest gainers from the reshuffle. The six-member special committee, formed to assist Sonia Gandhi in organisational and operational matters, will have AK Antony, Ahmed Patel, Ambika Soni, KC Venugopal, Mukul Wasnik and Randeep Surjewala as its members.

Surjewala has also been made the general secretary in-charge for Congress affairs in Karnataka.

From the ''group of 23'' leaders, who had written a letter to Gandhi seeking Congress' overhaul, Azad and Sharma continue to be regular members of the CWC, while Jitin Prasada has been made a permanent invitee to CWC from being a special invitee earlier.

Prasada has also been made in-charge of party affairs in West Bengal.