Headlines
Congress appoints new spokespersons, media panellists
New Delhi, March 24
The Congress, in an effort
to expand its media outreach, on Tuesday brought in many articulate and
young faces as spokespersons while appointing Ajay Maken, C.P. Joshi,
Satyavrat Chaturvedi and Shakeel Ahmed as senior spokespersons.
The
reshuffle, coming amid speculation about possible elevation of party
vice president Rahul Gandhi as president, saw the appointment of 17 new
spokespersons.
Sharmishtha Mukherjee, daughter of President
Pranab Mukherjee, was made a media panellist and will represent the
party's viewpoint in television debates.
Actor Khushboo is now a party spokesperson.
The
four new senior spokespersons are in addition to the existing team of
Anand Sharma, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Mukul Wasnik, P. Chidambaram and Salman
Khurshid.
The appointments were made within days of Randeep Singh Surjewala being made in-charge of the party's communications department.
The
new spokespersons include party MPs Deepender Hooda, Gaurav Gogoi, P.L.
Punia, Rajiv Gowda, Rajiv Satav, Rajni Patil and Sushmita Deb.
Former parliamentarians R.P.N. Singh, Vijay Inder Singla and Bhakta Charan Das are also in the list of spokespersons.
Tom
Vadakkan, who has been the party's media secretary for several years,
has been made a spokesperson along with Dinesh Gundu Rao, a former
Karnataka minister.
Meem Afzal has made a comeback as spokesperson.
Priyanka Chaturvedi, who has represented the party's viewpoint in TV debates, has been brought in as a spokesperson.
The Congress appears to have also kept in view representation of various regions in appointment of spokespersons.
The
new spokespersons will be in addition to the existing team of Abhishek
Manu Singhvi, Ajoy Kumar, Jyotiraditya Scindia, P.C. Chacko, Raj Babbar,
Rita Bahuguna Joshi, Sandeep Dikshit, Sanjay Jha, Shaktisinh Gohil and
Shobha Oza.
The list of 31 new media panellists includes former union ministers Manish Tewari and Rajiv Shukla.
Many
TV faces of the party are also in the list. These include Brijesh
Kalappa, Jaivir Shergill, C.R. Kesavan, Salman Soz, Ami Yagnik and
Ragini Nayak.
The list also includes Praniti Shinde, Akhilesh
Pratap Singh, Sanjay Nirupam Alok Sharma, Amit Deshmukh, Anant Gadgil,
Ashok Tanwar, Bhalchandra Mungerkar, Chandan Yadav, Charan Singh Sapra,
Devvrat Singh, Hussain Dalwai, Jitu Sharma, Mukesh Nayak, Nadeem Javed,
Naseer Hussain, Prem Chand Mishra, Ranjita Ranjan, Rashmi Kant, Sandeep
Chaudhary, and Vishnu.