TEAM HERALD
NEW DELHI: Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Thursday allocated temporary responsibility to the party leaders in 16 states whose in-charge general secretaries are contesting the elections. She has, however, not given the temporary charge of her responsibilities to anybody, though she too is busy contesting as also campaigning across the country.
In case of Goa, Advocate Babu Prasad from Kerala has been made the state coordinator, while it is Maharashtra leader Subodh Mohite as the state coordinator of Madhya Pradesh.
Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari and Haryana minister and AICC spokesman Randeep Surjewala jointly take charge of the Communications Department vice Ajay Maken, who is contesting from New Delhi. Assisting them will be Delhi’s Ragini Nayak, a NSUI leader who also contested the Delhi Assembly elections.
The most important Uttar Pradesh charge has gone to 55-year old AICC Secretary and Rajya Sabha MP Avinash Pande from Nagpur in place of general secretary Madhusudan Mistry contesting against Narendra Modi from Vadodara in Gujarat.
Another important state of Bihar gets senior MP Satyavrat Chaturvedi from MP as the in-charge in place of general secretary C P Joshi, whose two other responsibilities of West Bengal and Assam have been bestowed in general secretary Oscar Fernandes. Major Ved Prakash will assist Oscar in Assam.
Former Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot gets the temporary charge of Gujarat, Dadra Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu in place of Gurudas Kamat seeking re-election from Mumbai. Assisting him will be Narenda Budania as the state observer. Former union minister and Haryana PCC chief Kumari Selja has been made in-charge of Rajasthan, another state under Kamat’s charge.
Union Minister of State Rajeev Shukla is in-charge of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, with Rajasthan MP Prabha Thakur and Lal Singh of J&K respectively to assist him as the state observers and coordinators.
Union Minister Vayalar Ravi has been given the charge of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry looked after by Ghulam Nabi Azad while Maharashtra MP Rajani Patil gets the charge of Jammu and Kashmir and Tamil Nadu MP EMNS Natchiappan that of Kerala, Lakshadweep and Andaman.
Gujarat MP Prof Alka Kshetriya is the state coordinator for Punjab and Chandigarh while it is K B Krishnamurthy in Andhra Pradesh, Ranji Thomas in Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura and Rajyavardhan Dattigaon in Chhattisgarh.
