Congress Appoints New State In-Charges, Removes Six Leaders in Organisational Revamp

Days after suffering its third consecutive Assembly election defeat since the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress has carried out a significant organisational overhaul.

This restructuring, implemented on Friday (14 December), bears the distinct imprint of senior leader Rahul Gandhi, reported The Indian Express.

As part of this shake-up, the Congress has appointed new general secretaries for two states and new in-charges for nine others, while removing six leaders from their positions.

Among the most notable changes, former Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel has been inducted into the All India Congress Committee (AICC) secretariat, and has also been appointed the party's general secretary for Punjab.

Rajya Sabha MP Syed Naseer Hussain has been made the general secretary in charge of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh.

Baghel replaced Devender Yadav, who had continued holding the Punjab charge even after his appointment as Delhi Congress chief last year.

Hussain, on the other hand, takes over from Gujarat leader Bharatsinh Solanki.

While most of the newly appointed leaders are seen as close allies of Rahul Gandhi or AICC General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Hussain stands out as an exception due to his proximity to Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge.

A Rajya Sabha MP from Karnataka, Hussain was previously in charge of Kharge’s office.

The new state in-charges are Rajya Sabha MP Rajani Patil (Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh), B K Hariprasad (Haryana), Harish Chaudhary (Madhya Pradesh), Girish Chodankar (Tamil Nadu and Puducherry), Ajay Kumar Lallu (Odisha), K Raju (Jharkhand), Meenakshi Natarajan (Telangana), Lok Sabha MP Saptagiri Sankar Ulaka (Manipur, Tripura, Sikkim, and Nagaland), and Krishna Allavaru (Bihar).

Several of these appointees bring prior organisational experience.

Hariprasad has previously served as a general secretary overseeing several states, while Patil and Chaudhary have also held in-charge positions.

Meanwhile, Chodankar, who was earlier in charge of Manipur, Tripura, Sikkim, and Nagaland, now assumes responsibilities for Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.

Newcomers to these roles include Lallu, Raju, and Ulaka, all of whom are seen as close to Rahul Gandhi.

Lallu, a former Uttar Pradesh Congress chief, has now been given charge of Odisha.

Raju, a former bureaucrat and national coordinator for the SC, ST, OBC, and minority departments of Congress, will oversee Jharkhand.

Allavaru, currently the Youth Congress in-charge, has been assigned Bihar, a critical state heading into elections this year.

Natarajan, who previously led the Rajiv Gandhi Panchayati Raj Sangathan, has been assigned Telangana.

Among the outgoing leaders are Dipak Babaria, who held charge of Haryana during the party’s Assembly election defeat last year, and Solanki (Jammu & Kashmir).

Others removed from their positions include Devender Yadav (Punjab), Mohan Prakash (Bihar), Rajeev Shukla (Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh), and Ajoy Kumar (Odisha, Tamil Nadu, and Puducherry).

This reshuffle find its imprint from the Congress’s broader strategy of organisational restructuring, which was announced during the Congress Working Committee meeting in Karnataka’s Belagavi on 26 December.

The party had declared that "2025 will be the year of organisational strengthening for the party on all levels."

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