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Congress Working Committee

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The Congress Working Committee (CWC) is the executive committee of the Indian National Congress. It was formed in December 1920 at Nagpur session of INC which was headed by C. Vijayaraghavachariar. It is composed of senior party leaders and is responsible for taking decisions on important policy and organizational matters, as well as guiding and directing the party's activities and campaigns at the national level. It typically consists of fifteen members elected from the All India Congress Committee (AICC). The CWC is headed by the party president, who is elected by the members of the All India Congress Committee (AICC), the party's central governing body.

Mahatma Gandhi attends a Congress Working Committee meeting at Anand Bhavan, Allahabad; Vallabhbhai Patel to the left, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit to the right, January 1940.

The Working Committee has had different levels of power in the party at different times. In the period prior to Indian independence in 1947, the Working Committee was the centre of power, and the Working President was frequently more active than the Congress President. In the period after 1967, when the Congress Party split for the first time (between factions loyal to Indira Gandhi and those led by the Syndicate of regional leaders including Kamaraj, Prafulla Chandra Sen, Ajoy Mukherjee, and Morarji Desai), the power of the Working Committee declined; but Indira Gandhi's triumph in 1971 led to a re-centralisation of power away from the states and the All-India Congress Committee and caused the Working Committee in Delhi to once again be the paramount decision-making body of the party.[1] The centralised nature of Congress decision making has since caused observers in the states to informally describe instructions from Delhi as coming from the High Command.

Composition of Congress Working Committee

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Sources:[2][3][4]

President

Name Portrait Position in government
Mallikarjun Kharge

Members[5]

S. No Member Portrait Position in government
1. Sonia Gandhi
2. Manmohan Singh
3. Rahul Gandhi
4. A. K. Antony
5. Ambika Soni
6. Abhishek Singhvi
7. Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury
8. Ajay Maken
9. Anand Sharma
10. Jairam Ramesh
11. Gaikhangam Gangmei
12. Jitendra Singh
13. Selja Kumari
14. Dr Lal Thanhawla
15. Mukul Wasnik
16. Charanjit Singh Channi
17. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra
18. P. Chidambaram
19. Randeep Surjewala
20. N. Raghuveera Reddy
21. Tariq Anwar
22. Sachin Pilot
23. Tamradhwaj Sahu
24. Shashi Tharoor
25. Salman Khurshid
26. Digvijaya Singh
27. Deepak Babaria
28. Meira Kumar
29. Jagdish Thakor
30. Ghulam Ahmad Mir
31. Avinash Pandey
32. Deepa Dasmunsi
33. Gaurav Gogoi
34. Syed Naseer Hussain
35. Kamleshwar Patel
36. K. C. Venugopal
37 Balasaheb Thorat

Permanent Invitees

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[6]

S.no Member Portrait Position
1. Ajoy Kumar Ex MP Lok Sabha
2. Rajeev Shukla MP
3. A. Chellakumar Ex MP Lok Sabha
4. Pratibha Singh Ex MP Lok Sabha
5. Pawan Kumar Bansal ex MP, (Chandigarh)
6. Veerappa Moily ex MP, (Karnataka)
7. Harish Rawat Former Chief Minister of Uttarakhand
8. Bharatsinh Solanki Ex MP
9. Mohan Prakash ex MLA, Rajasthan
10. Ramesh Chennithala MLA, Kerala
11. B. K. Hariprasad MLC, Karnataka
12. Manish Tewari MP, chandigarh
13. Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa MP
14. Deepender Singh Hooda MP, Haryana
15. Devender Yadav Ex MLA
16. Girish Chodankar
17. Gurdeep Singh Sappal
18. T. Subbarami Reddy ex MP, Andhra Pradesh
19. K Raju
20. Manikrao Thakre Ex MLA
21. Chandrakant Handore MP Rajya Sabha, ex MLAMaharashtra
22. Meenakshi Natarajan ex MP, Madhya Pradesh
23. Manickam Tagore MP
24. Phulo Devi Netam MP, Chhattisgarh
25. Damodar Raja Narasimha Cabinet Minister, Telangana
26. Sudip Roy Barman MLA, Tripura
27. Kanhaiya Kumar
28. Sachin Rao

Special Invitees

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[7]

S. No Member Portrait Position
1. Alka Lamba President, All India Mahila Congress
2. Varun Choudhary President, NSUI
3. Srinivas BV President, IYC
4. Lalji Desai Chief Organiser ,Seva Dal
5. Supriya Shrinate Chairman, Social Media & Platforms
6. Challa Vamshi Chand Reddy Ex MLA
7. Kodikunnil Suresh MP
8. Yashomati Thakur MLA
9. Gidugu Rudra Raju ex President APCC
10. Ganesh Godiyal Ex MLA
11. Praniti Shinde MP
12. M. M. Pallam Raju ex-MP
13. Pawan Khera Chairman, Media & Publicity
14. Vikar Rasool Wani Ex President J&KPCC
15. Naseem Khan Ex MLA Maharashtra

Criticism

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The Congress has not held internal elections for CWC for nearly 20 years and the last elections were held in 1998.[8] In 2017 Election Commission ordered it to hold internal elections[9] but as of 2020 no elections were held.[10] When Congress was trying to forge an alliance with ideologically opposite Shiv Sena in Maharashtra in 2019, Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam publicly urged Sonia Gandhi to dissolve the CWC, saying "they cannot be trusted anymore."[11] [12] In 2020 a paper by Observer Research Foundation calls a large number of CWC members "unprincipled, opportunists and self-serving individuals for whom self-interest is paramount."[13]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Towards a More Competitive Party System in India", Ram Joshi and Kirtidev Desai, Asian Survey, Vol. 18, No. 11. (Nov., 1978), pp. 1091-1116.
  2. ^ "Indian National Congress".
  3. ^ "Analysis: New Congress Working Committee - Focus on Polls, Not Rocking Boat".
  4. ^ Phukan, Sandeep (20 August 2023). "Shashi Tharoor, Sachin Pilot included in revamped Congress Working Committee". The Hindu.
  5. ^ "Indian National Congress - Congress Working Committee".
  6. ^ "Indian National Congress - Congress Working Committee". Archived from the original on 20 July 2019.
  7. ^ "Indian National Congress - Congress Working Committee". Archived from the original on 17 July 2019.
  8. ^ "Nobody But Rahul, Says Congress Leader Whose Father Ran vs Sonia Gandhi". Archived from the original on 12 August 2019. Retrieved 23 August 2020.
  9. ^ "Election Commission Tells Congress to Hold Internal Elections by June 30". Retrieved 23 August 2020.
  10. ^ Pankaj Vohra (8 August 2020). "EC can freeze Congress symbol or initiate action if the party remains leaderless". Retrieved 23 August 2020.
  11. ^ "Congress "Defamed", Rahul Gandhi Should Return to Lead: Sanjay Nirupam After Maharashtra Twist". Archived from the original on 6 February 2020.
  12. ^ "Old Grudge, Unfulfilled Demand: Why Rahul Gandhi Remained Absent from Cong's Meet on Delhi Riots". 26 February 2020. Archived from the original on 26 February 2020.
  13. ^ "Congress moving towards extinction?". Archived from the original on 14 March 2020.
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