No place for letter writers in new Congress panels

Congress leaders such as Jitin Prasad and Raj Babbar, who were signatories to a letter to party chief Sonia Gandhi for a re-haul of the organisation, have failed to find a place in the new committees formed for Uttar Pradesh.

Those who denounced the letter writers in the "Group of 23" like Nirmal Khatri and Naseeb Pathan have interestingly found places in the panels announced by Gandhi on Sunday.

Former UPPCC chief Khatri is in the Training and Cadre Development Committee, while Pathan is part of the Programme Implementation Committee.

Both had denounced the letter writers and demanded action against them.

The Congress announced the formation of the Manifesto Committee, Outreach Committee, Membership Committee, Programme Implementation Committee, Training and Cadre Development Committee, Panchayat Raj Election Committee and Media and Communication Advisory Committee for its Uttar Pradesh unit.

While Salman Khurshid, PL Punia, Aradhana Misra, Supriya Shrinate, Vivek Bansal and Amitabh Dubey are in the Manifesto Committee, those in the Outreach Committee include Pramod Tiwari, Pradip Jain, Gajraj Singh, Naseemuddin Siddiqui, Imran Masood and Bal Kumar Patel.

Those in the Membership Committee are Anugrah Narayan Singh, Ajay Kapoor, BL Khabri, Mohd Muqeem, former MP Kamal Kishore "Commando" and former Varanasi MLA Ajay Rai.

The Media and Communication Advisory Committee has Rashid Alvi, Lalitesh Pati Tripathi, Akhilesh Pratap Singh, Surendra Rajput, Omkar Singh and Virendra Madan.

The UPPCC president and the CLP leader will be ex-officio members of all the committees, an official communication from the party said.