Moily, Rao Dumped By CWC

The Congress party on Friday chose to ignore leaders from Andhra Pradesh in the reconstituted Congress Working Committee despite the state becoming a cauldron of issues which could affect the party in the long term.

The party also changed its man in charge of AP Affairs, replacing M Veerappa Moily with Gulam Nabi Azad.

As expected, the reshuffle of the CWC saw the exit of G Venkatswamy, who had let off a barrage of accusations against party President Sonia Gandhi recently. However, the dropping of senior leader from Telangana, K Keshav Rao, was unexpected.

Surprisingly, the Congress chose to ignore picking up any member of the party from Andhra Pradesh, which had sent the largest chunks of party MPs to the Lok Sabha twice in succession.

Apart from Venkataswamy and Keshav Rao, senior leader Arjun Singh, Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, Union Ministers Mallikarjun Kharge and V Narayansami, and MP Kishore Chandra Deo have been dropped.

Narayanswami and Mohsina Kidwai were also dropped as party general-secretaries.

Both Arjun Singh and Kidwai, however, have been made permanent Special Invitees.

Azad has been entrusted with the responsibility of taking care of the hot-bed which Andhra Pradesh is now becoming, as well as Tamil Nadu in which elections are round the corner.

However, senior leader G Sanjeeva Reddy was retained as the CWC’s Special Invitee in the CWC, while P Sudhakar Reddy and V Hanumantha Rao have been retained as Congress Secretaries.

Political observers say that the Congress President may have dropped leaders from the state from the CWC following their repeated breaching of the party code.

While Venkataswamy may have been punished for the scathing attack he had made on Gandhi, Keshav Rao has been an active participant in the separate Telangana statehood struggle.

Moily may have been relieved of his duties as the man in-charge of AP Affairs due to his inability to keep former Kadapa MP Y S Jaganmohan Reddy in check, the analysts further say.

Courtesy: INN