Sonia Gandhi's balancing act in Congress appointments: Loyalists, Dissenters, 'Young Guns'

Days after Congress President Sonia Gandhi retained her position as the party chief, assuring dissenters that she would not hold 'grudges' against them, the Congress has formed a five-member panel to discuss and formulate the party’s stand on key issues of national interest. A panel, which sees important leaders and coincidentally or not, signatories to the dissenting letter missing. The Strategy committee convened by Jairam Ramesh, includes P Chidambaram, Digvijaya Singh, Dr Amar Singh and Gaurav Gogoi, all considered hard loyalists of the grand-old party. 

Rajya Sabha panel

The Congress party, however, has tried to compromise the lack of presence of dissenters in the strategy panel by elevating them to better positions in the Rajya Sabha Committee. The Rajya Sabha Committee includes leaders like Ahmed Patel, KC Venugopal and Jairam Ramesh along with Leader of Opposition and a signatory to dissenting letter Ghulam Nabi Azad and party’s deputy leader Anand Sharma, another signatory to the letter. Loyalist Jairam Ramesh has also been appointed the chief whip in Rajya Sabha. Senior leader Kapil Sibal who had created quite a row after he tweeted and deleted a tweet openly slamming Rahul Gandhi missed out. 

Lok Sabha panel

In the Lok Sabha, perhaps responding to the pressure for 'younger voices' to be allowed representation in the party, Sonia Gandhi has elevated two young party MPs to senior positions. Assam MP Gaurav Gogoi has been made the deputy leader of Congress, while Ludhiana MP Ravneet Singh Bittu has been made the party’s whip, both considered young voices within the grand-old party. The two, along with leader of the Congress in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, chief whip K Suresh and another whip Manickam Tagore would form the five-member Committee of the Lok Sabha. It is pertinent to note that former Union Ministers Shashi Tharoor and Manish Tewari, signatories to the dissent letter were ignored for the Deputy Leader's post. 

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Congress quashes dissent

Quashing all internal dissent, Congress Working Committee (CWC) on Monday, retained Sonia Gandhi as party chief till elections are called for in the next AICC meeting. Moreover, it passed a resolution strengthening the Gandhis' leadership and not allowing anyone to undermine the party or the Gandhis (Rahul and Sonia). When asked if action will be taken on the 23 dissenters, CWC said that Sonia Gandhi was hurt, but did not hold any grudges against them.

The 23 senior leaders sought 'structural changes', internal election to the CWC even at state levels, the formation of an Independent Election Authority, and institutional leadership mechanism, full-time leadership at the helm at the party.  The 23 signatories include Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma, Kapil Sibal, Manish Tewari, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Rajender Kaur Bhattal, M. Veerappa Moily, Prithviraj Chavan, P.J. Kurian, Ajay Singh, Renuka Chaudhary, and Milind Deora -  belonging from the Congress' 'old guard ' and the 'young guard' (i.e Rahul Gandhi supporters). Apart from these signatories, over 300 Congress workers had extended their support to it.

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