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Sonia appoints new TNCC chief

Congress president Sonia Gandhi reconstituted the Tamil Nadu unit of the party on Tuesday and named S Balakrishnan, who belonged to the erstwhile Tamil Maanila Congress, as the new chief.

Outgoing president E V K S Elangovan has been named working president of the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee.

This is the first time any state unit of the Congress has got a working president. At the national level, the late Kamalapati Tripathi and Arjun Singh had at different times functioned as working presidents when Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, respectively, were holding the office of prime minister.

A former leader of the opposition in the state assembly, Balakrishnan continues to be an MLA from his native Kadaladi constituency.

But indications are that Elangovan, who has been a critic of the ruling All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, will continue to have a free run of the day-to-day affairs of the party.

This becomes all the more relevant in view of Jayalalithaa's strong attack on Sonia Gandhi's foreign origin, declaring her unfit for the post of prime minister.

Incidentally, Tuesday's announcement in Delhi stood in the name of Congress general secretary Oscar Fernandes and not Ramesh Chennithala, party secretary, who had been given independent charge of the party in Tamil Nadu.

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