Harbingers of Sonia's New Team ?

A list of 15 party leaders sent to the TV channels on Friday as authorized to speak on behalf of the Congress is seen in the party as harbingers of the new team of office- bearers that Sonia Gandhi is about to constitute.

Inclusion of former union minister Renuka Chowdhary, Girija Vyas, P C Chako, Raj Babbar and Sanjay Nirupam in the list indicates that they may be given some organisational assignments in the pending AICC reshuffle.

Most significant is exclusion of the most powerful Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh who was the prominent figure on behalf of the party during the Lok Sabha elections last year. The AICC is agog with speculation that he may be shown the door in the reshuffle.

A similar list of 24 party leaders given to the TV channels in 2009 for inviting them for the political discussions included Digvijay Singh, Kapil Sibal, Salman Khursheed, Anand Sharma, P Chidambaram, Veerappa Moily, Satyavrat Chaturvedi, Kamal Nath, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sachin Pilot and Rajiv Shukla.

New Responsibilities: Inclusion of health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, information and broadcasting minister Ambika Soni, parliamentary affairs minister Pawan Bansal, environment minister Jairam Ramesh and rural development minister C. P. Joshi also led to speculation at the possibility of shifting them for the organisational responsibilities. Azad, Ambika and Jairam had held senior positions in the party’’ s organisational set up for long time until a coterie working in 10 Janpath succeeded in eliminating them from Sonia Gandhi’s proximity and hence partymen do not express surprise if they are told to give up the ministerial posts to devote to the party work. No surprise that Sonia Gandhi chose Azad instead of any AICC office- bearer to rush to Hyderabad early this week and defuse the crisis that erupted immediately after new chief minister Kiran Kumar Reddy constituted the ministry.

Janardan in Minister?: AICC General Secretary Janardan Dwivedi does not figure himself in the list that he announced despite being the party’s chief spokesman in his capacity as the chairman of the AICC Media Department and as such there was also speculation about his role.

Maybe, he is headed for joining the Union Ministry, a party leader said as also pending is the reshuffle of Dr Manmohan Singh’s team that he hinted to carry out before the Parliament session.

Plenar Rumblings: Meanwhile, there is also rethinking on holding the plenary session in a tent city on the outskirts of Delhi because of the cold weather intensifying that may not be bearable to the delegates, except those from the north.