New Delhi: The workplace of the Congress president has all the time been a robust one. Solely over the previous few years, a lot of that energy was wielded away from the workplace of the Congress president.
That’s the reason Mallikarjun Kharge taking cost as the top of the Congress celebration final month got here with fast and visual adjustments. The room earmarked for the Congress president at 24, Akbar Highway, the headquarters of the Congress celebration for a few years, now has a full time occupant. “Mallikarjun Kharge President” says the brand new board.
80-year-old Kharge is available in at a time when many really feel that the Congress celebration is at a nadir. The Karnataka chief, who has held a number of posts within the celebration and authorities, would have his palms full checking out pending prickly points within the celebration.
Amongst them these in Rajasthan — the state which pressured his last-minute entry as a Congress president aspirant — and Kerala, the place his challenger Shashi Tharoor is dealing with non-cooperation in his own residence state.
That’s the reason when a quick press be aware from the Congress introduced the appointment of 4 All India Congress Committee Coordinators — Nasir Hussain, Pranav Jha, Gurdeep Sappal and Gaurav Pandhi — hooked up to the workplace of the Congress president, it was clear that the method of placing collectively a brand new group for a brand new Congress president was below manner.
As a senior Congress chief informed ThePrint: “They’re coordinators who will take care of his appointments, transient him, take a look at speech writing and likewise typically coordinate with the remainder of the organisation. All issues and all states have designated individuals taking care of them. Their job is to merely be the bridge between them and the CP.
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Who’re these ‘coordinators’?
Nasir Hussain: A Rajya Sabha member since 2018, Hussain was the marketing campaign supervisor for Kharge when he was touring the nation forward of the Congress President election.
The 2 return a great distance. Initially from Ballari, Hussain who has a PhD in worldwide politics, first got here in contact with Kharge when he was a minister in Karnataka and has since labored along with him together with through the UPA authorities when Kharge was labour minister and Hussain was vice-chairman of the Little one Labour Board.
For a lot of his 22 years within the Congress celebration although, Hussain, who spent lengthy years in scholar and youth politics, was groomed by the late veteran Oscar Fernandes, who, too, belonged to Karnataka. It was Fernandes who had made him part of the group tasked with rebuilding the Andaman and Nicobar islands after the Tsunami that hit in 2004.
Coordination, although, is one thing through which he has vital expertise. When Kharge turned Chief of the Opposition within the Rajya Sabha final yr, Hussain turned one of many Whips accountable for coordination with celebration MPs and likewise ground coordination with different political events. He was additionally among the many troubleshooters for the Congress celebration through the anti-reservation stir in AIIMS in 2006 coordinating between the UPA authorities and the agitating college students.
Pranav Jha: An AICC secretary related to the Communications Division, Jha is a recognized face accompanying audio system on the day by day AICC briefings and on tv defending the celebration.
A Filmmaker, promoting skilled and columnist from Jharkhand, Jha took the dive into politics 16 years in the past. Bhanwar Jitendra Singh, then in control of Youth Congress, used Jha for making ready floor experiences and political evaluation and made him state election observer for the Jharkhand Meeting elections in 2019. Later, he entrusted him with coaching Youth Congress workplace bearers.
Jha has a protracted affiliation with Kharge. Congress insiders discuss him as the person who would normally transient Kharge because the LoP (chief of opposition) each morning throughout Parliament classes.
Changing Priya Dutt as secretary, AICC, in-charge communication, below whom he labored as Nationwide Media Coordinator, a lot of his ascent within the organisation occurred when Randeep Surjewala was the person in-charge of the communications division.
Articulate and bilingual, Jha’s has been a largely low-profile presence within the organisation, patiently fielding calls from journalists, campaigning with Yashwant Sinha and Margaret Alva for the presidential and VP elections, respectively.
He was later hooked up to the Central Election Authority of the celebration. He has campaigned for the celebration in Jharkhand however celebration leaders say his electoral ambitions in his residence state had been by no means realised due to his equations with R.P.N Singh, as soon as AICC in-charge for the state, and now a BJP chief.
Gurdeep Sappal: A former OSD to Hamid Ansari, when he was the Vice-President of India, a former CEO and Editor in Chief of Rajya Sabha TV, Gurdeep Sappal formally joined the Congress in 2020.
In truth, of the 4 AICC coordinators hooked up to the workplace of the Congress President, he’s the most recent entrant into the celebration.
Even when he was in RSTV, experiences typically emerged of him taking over assignments with senior Congress leaders, together with the then Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh.
In truth, after he give up RSTV in 2017, he went on to launch Swaraj Categorical, a tv channel whose Managing Editor was Amrita Rai, former RSTV anchor and spouse of senior Congress chief Digvijaya Singh. Quickly after formally becoming a member of the Congress, Sappal was appointed as a nationwide spokesman, showing for the celebration on tv channels and debate platforms.
Sappal’s change of occupation from a bureaucrat/journalist to a politician was preceded by an issue, when in 2019 he was served a discover by the Rajya Sabha Secretariat over the manufacturing of the film ‘Raag Desh’ for RSTV. Sappal had denied any culpability.
Sources near Sappal say that the matter was referred to the Lawyer Normal of India by the workplace of the Rajya Sabha chairman who in 2020 took the view that no offence had been dedicated and subsequently there was no have to refer the matter for investigation.
“He has lengthy expertise in tv, has been the editor in chief of RSTV. He might be taking a look at speech writing and such different issues for the Congress president,” stated a celebration supply about his appointment as a All India Congress Committee Coordinator.
Gaurav Pandhi: Pandhi is a recognized social media mobiliser for the Congress. Although he formally joined the celebration solely in 2013, his days as a Congress activist (initially casual) started when he and a bunch of others began posting pro-Congress posts on the social media round 2011-12 throughout the Lokpal agitation in Delhi and different components of the nation.
A banker-turned-communications skilled, Pandhi joined the Congress after quitting his job in a non-public non-banking monetary firm and was a part of the group that arrange the Congress social media group in 2013. He took a break from the celebration in 2017 and rejoined in 2020 when he was made a Nationwide Coordinator for the social media division.
Previous to the meeting elections in Punjab in February this yr, he was given cost of social media for the marketing campaign, although the outcomes had been a disappointment. Earlier this yr he joined the media division below Pawan Khera and was given cost of the social media for the Bharat Jodo Yatra. He has since been strolling with the group although his job profile doesn’t require him to. He has not labored with Kharge instantly previously.
(This copy has been up to date.)
(Edited by V.S. Chandrasekar)
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