Major rejig in Cong media team: Sr ministers made spokespersons

Keeping in view the approaching Lok Sabha elections, the All Indian Congress Committee has appointed a battery of high-profile spokesmen for the Congress to showcase the achievements of the last 10 years of United Progressive Alliance government and publicise the various sectors where the UPA has performed. Renu Mittal reports

Designating them as senior spokesmen the party has appointed Union finance minister P Chidambaram, External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare Ghulam Nabi Azad, Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Anand Sharma and general secretary Mukul Wasnik to brief the media from AICC platform.

A number of new spokespersons have also been brought in while some of the earlier ones have been retained. Abhishek Singhvi makes a comeback as a party spokesman and another new entrant is Shashi Tharoor.

Jyotiraditya Scindia who was made a member of party vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s election strategy committee along with Randip surjewala has been made a spokesperson along with Surjewala. The other spokesmen are P C Chacko, Raj Babbar, Rita Bahuguna Joshi, Sandeep Dixit, Sanjay Jha, Satyavrat Chaturvedi, Shakeel Ahmed, Shakti Singh Gohil and Shobha Ojha.

While 12 spokespersons and media panelists for television have been dropped, a list of 24 media panelists have been appointed to appear on television debates while another 30 have been appointed as panelists on national media on state issues.

Most of these are from the youth congress and National Students' Union Of India and would get the opportunity to learn the ropes so that based on performance they can be promoted later.

Among those who have been dropped are Meem Afzal, Bhakti Charan Das and earlier Renuka Chaudhary was dropped while Jayanto Natarajan has not been made the party spokespersons.