Coordination panels set up in Cong states

CONGRESS LEADERS SAID THE PANELS WERE FORMED AFTER SEVERAL COMPLAINTS CAME TO LIGHT ABOUT THE ATTITUDE OF PARTY VETERANS

NEWDELHI: The Congress on Monday formed committees in four out of the seven states it is currently in power to improve coordination and to stem any factional fights, according to functionaries of the party. It also formed manifesto implementation panels in five of the states, they added.

Party insiders said there will be no such panels in Maharashtra and Jharkhand as the Congress is a junior partner to regional parties in these states. So there is a little requirement for any such mechanism, they said.

The manifesto implementation panels have been formed in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Chhattisgarh, and Puducherry. Coordination panels have been set up in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Puducherry, and Rajasthan.

In Madhya Pradesh, the panels will include chief minister Kamal Nath and leaders like Digvijaya Singh, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Arun Yadav, Jitu Patwari and Minakshi Natarajan.

Congress leaders said the panels were formed after several complaints came to light about the attitude of party veterans. The party’s leadership was informed that some top state leaders were deliberately trying to undermine their colleagues, they added.

Madhya Pradesh state Congress media in-charge Shobha Oza said, “This is a welcome step. The Congressmen worked hard and struggled against the misrule of the BJP [Bharatiya Janata

Party] government for 15 years to help the party dislodge the BJP from power in the 2018 assembly elections. The coordination committees will help the party workers and the government to understand each other in a better way.”

In Rajasthan, both chief minister Ashok Gehlot and his deputy, Sachin Pilot, are part of the state panels.

The Congress has picked P Chidambaram as the chairman of the manifesto panel in Punjab. Similarly, Veerappa Moily will chair a similar panel in Puducherry, Jairam Ramesh in Chhattisgarh, Prithviraj Chavan in Madhya Pradesh and Tamradhwaj Sahu in Rajasthan.