Cong appoints new state unit chiefs in WB, MP, JK

In changes ahead of crucial Assembly elections, the Congress on Wednesday made Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi its state unit chief in the Left-ruled West Bengal and appointed two other union ministers as party heads in Madhya Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir.
 
Months after the changes in the All India Congress Committee, party president Sonia Gandhi appointed Union Water Resources Minister Saifuddin Soz as the party chief in Jammu and Kashmir and Minister of State for Personnel Suresh Pachouri as the PCC chief in Madhya Pradesh.
 
Ajay Singh, son of Union Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh, has been made in-charge of the campaign committee in Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Madhya Pradesh.
 
Dasmunsi, who represents Raiganj in Lok Sabha, replaces Pranab Mukherjee, who had resigned after the party's debacle in the assembly polls in 2006.
 
He was the PCC president between 1985 and 1988 and has served as the national youth Congress chief for four years.
 
West Bengal, where the Congress has been out of power for over 30

years now, would hold panchayat elections soon and the Lok Sabha elections next year.
 
Jammu and Kashmir, where Congress runs a coalition government with the People's Democratic Party, and the BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh will have Assembly elections later this year.
 
Dasmunsi, who holds the portfolio of Information and Broadcasting and Parliamentary Affairs and Pachouri ,who also looks after Parliamentary Affairs as MoS, may have to shed one of their ministries. Soz may continue to hold charge of his ministry.
 
Pachouri, whose fourth term in Rajya Sabha comes to a close shortly, replaces Subhash Yadav, who has been functioning without any office bearers or the Executive for nearly three years.
 
Soz, who made his entry into Lok Sabha in 1983, comes in place of Peerzada Mohammad  Sayeed, who resigned in the wake of corruption charges against him. Soz had joined the Congress five years ago, after a long stint in the National Conference.