New Delhi: Supporters in the Shashi Tharoor camp were upset with Mallikarjun Kharge’s newly formed 47-member Congress Steering Committee as the Thiruvananthapuram MP did not get a spot in the panel, party sources told ABP News. New Congress president, Mallikarjun Kharge after taking the charge formed a 47-member Steering Committee which included former prime minister Manmohan Singh and the party’s ex-presidents Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi.
As per the sources, Tharoor camp was of the view that if Kharge really intended to take everyone together, he would have included Shashi Tharoor and some of his close leaders in the new steering committee.
These sources alleged that Kharge's new steering committee has about a dozen names that were not earlier included in the Congress Working Committee, and this shows that Tharoor and some other leaders could have been given a place in this steering committee.
The panel has been formed as an interim committee which will be headed by Kharge and will remain in place till the next Congress Working Committee, the apex decision-making body, is formed after Kharge's election is ratified at the party plenary.
All members and permanent invitees of the last CWC have been retained in the committee except Vivek Bansal.
Bansal, a former MLA who was a permanent invitee in the previous CWC, is now the in-charge for Haryana affairs of the party.
The CWC special invitees not included in the new panel are Ajay Kumar Lallu, Chinta Mohan, Deepender Singh Hooda, Sachin Rao, besides Seva Dal chief organiser Lalji Desai, Indian Youth Congress chief Srinivas B V, National Students Union of India chief Neeraj Kundan, Mahila Congress chief Netta D'Souza and president of Intuc G Sanjeeva Reddy.
Anand Sharma, a CWC member and a prominent leader of the G23 dissident group that was pushing for organisational overhaul, has been retained in the Steering Committee.
(With inputs from PTI)