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Sonia will revive Congress Parliamentary Board

Congress president Sonia Gandhi will revive the party's parliamentary board as part of the reorganisation programme.

However, this will be done only after the reconstitution of the Congress Working Committee, the sources said. The high level parliamentary board was wound up by P V Narasimha Rao when he was party president.

Gandhi has already appointed a six-member task force headed by former Lok Sabha Speaker Purno A Sangma to prepare an agenda for the party's action plan based on the party president's address to the All India Congress Committee, the political resolution adopted at the AICC session and the suggestions made by those who took part in the debate on the resolution. The task force has been asked to submit its report by April 21.

The CWC, till now incomplete, will be given a new look with the induction of a few members in the nominated category. Though there is a provision for ten nominated members including the president, only six had been nominated by former president Sitaram Kesri.

Some of the nominated members are likely to be replaced. K Karunakaran, Sangma and Rajesh Pilot are among those likely to be nominated, keeping in view the need for experience and young blood. The nominated members at present are A K Antony, Dr Manmohan Singh, J B Patnaik, Oscar Fernandes, Lalthanhawla and Meira Kumar. However, no elected member will be asked to step down, the sources said.

The CWC members elected at the Calcutta AICC session are Arjun Singh, Jitendra Prasada, Tariq Anwar, Madhavrao Scindia, R K Dhawan, Pranab Mukherjee, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Sharad Pawar and K Vijayabhaskar Reddy.

The general secretaries are likely to be nominated from among the CWC members, the sources said. This will be a deviation from the present practice.

Another proposal being considered by the party president is to bunch chief ministers, Pradesh Congress committee presidents and state legislature party leaders as one category so that they could be special invitees to CWC meetings. At present only some chief ministers are members of the CWC, leaving a feeling among others that they are being ignored.

According to the sources, the practice of appointing a working president or vice-president will be done away with. When the president was full time and active, there is no need for an acting president or vice-president and the practice of creating parallel power centres has not done any good to the party in the past, the sources pointed out.

Meanwhile, the committees set up to find out the reasons for the party's debacle in some states, are expected to submit their reports to the party president this week. The necessary follow-up action is expected very soon, the sources said.

UNI

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