After Screening Committees, Congress Constitutes Publicity Panel, War Rooms For Lok Sabha Election

The Congress also constituted five screening committees for shortlisting candidates for the general elections. The states and Union Territories were divided into five clusters.

New Delhi: The Congress on Saturday constituted a publicity committee and central war rooms for the Lok Sabha elections this year, a statement issued by the party said.

According to the party statement, AICC treasurer Ajay Maken will be the convenor of the panel. The committee members also include the Congress general secretary (organisation), general secretary (communication) Jairam Ramesh, chairperson, media and publicity, Pawan Khera, chairperson social media, Supriya Shrinate, and in-charge (administration) Surdeep Singh Sappal. The committee will also have special invitees as and when required, depending on their respective approval from the party.

The Congress also constituted its central war room for the general elections. The organisational war room will be headed by Sasikanth Senthil S, and the vice-chairpersons include Gokul Butail, Naveen Sharma, Varun Santhosh, and Arvind Kumar. Vaibhav Walia will be the chairman of the communication war room.

Earlier, on Friday, the party constituted five screening committees for shortlisting candidates for the elections. The states and Union Territories were divided into five clusters.

Harish Chaudhary was appointed the screening committee chairperson for the cluster comprising Telangana, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Lakshadweep and Pudducherry. The other members are ignesh Mevani and Viswajeet Kadam.

Madhusudan Mistry was made the panel chief for cluster comprising Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Goa, Odisha, Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The other members are Suraj Hegde and Shafi Parambil.

For Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Delhi, Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli cluster, Rajani Patil was named the chairperson of the screening panel, with Krishna Allavuru and Pargat Singh as its members.

For the cluster comprising Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh, Bhakta Charan Das is the chairman, with Neeraj Dangi and Yashomati Thakur as the other members.

For cluster comprising Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura, Sikkim, the panel will be headed by Rana K P Singh, with Jaivardhan Singh and Ivan D'Souza as the other members.

The development comes days after the top leaders held a meeting to discuss the party's strategy for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.