Congress Working Committee

The Congress Working Committee (CWC) is the executive committee of the Indian National Congress. It was formed in December 1920 at Nagpur session of INC which was headed by C. Vijayaraghavachariar. It typically consists of fifteen members elected from the All India Congress Committee. It is headed by the Working President.

Mahatma Gandhi attends a Congress Working Committee meeting at Anand Bhavan, Allahabad; Vallabhbhai Patel to the left, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit to the right, January 1940.
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The Working Committee has had different levels of power in the party at different times. In the period prior to independence in 1947, the Working Committee was the centre of power, and the Working President was frequently more active than the Congress President. In the period after 1967, when the Congress Party split for the first time (between factions loyal to Indira Gandhi and those led by the Syndicate of regional bosses including Kamaraj, Prafulla Chandra Sen, Ajoy Mukherjee, and Morarji Desai), the power of the Working Committee declined; but Indira Gandhi's triumph in 1971 led to a re-centralisation of power away from the states and the All-India Congress Committee and caused the Working Committee in Delhi to once again be the paramount decision-making body of the party.[1] The centralised nature of Congress decision making has since caused observers in the states to informally describe instructions from Delhi as coming from the "High Command".

Composition

President

Member Position in government
Sonia Gandhi Member of Parliament

Members[2]

Member Position in government
Rahul Gandhi Member of Parliament
Priyanka Gandhi Vadra Congress General Secretary
Manmohan Singh Member of Parliament, Former Prime Minister of India
Mallikarjun Kharge Member of Parliament
Ghulam Nabi Azad Leader of the Opposition, Rajya Sabha
A. K. Antony Member of Parliament
Ambika Soni Member of Parliament
Anand Sharma Member of Parliament
Harish Rawat Former Chief Minister of Uttarakhand
K.C Venugopal Member of Parliament
P. Chidambaram Member of Parliament
Mukul Wasnik Ex Union Minister
Oommen Chandy Former Chief Minister of Kerala
Ajay Maken Former Member of Parliament
Jitendra Singh Former Union Minister
Tariq Anwar Former Member of Parliament
Randeep Surjewala Former Member of Legislative Assembly, Haryana
Gaikhangam Gangmei Former Deputy Chief Minister, Manipur
Raghuveer Meena Former Member of Parliament
Tarun Gogoi Former Chief Minister of Assam

Permanent Invitees

[3]

Member party Position
Digvijaya Singh MP
Meira Kumar Former Speaker of Lok Sabha
Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury MP
Jairam Ramesh MP
Salman Khurshid Ex MP
Avinash Pandey
K. H. Muniyappa Ex MP
Pramod Tiwari MP
Tariq Hameed Karra Ex MP
Pawan Kumar Bansal Ex MP
Rajni Patil Ex MP
P. L. Punia MP
R. P. N. Singh Ex Union Minister
Shaktisinh Gohil MP
Rajiv Satav MP
Rajeev Shukla Ex MP
Jitin Prasada Ex MP
Dinesh Gundu Rao MLA
Manicka Tagore MP
A. Chellakumar MP
H. K. Patil MLA
Devender Yadav Ex MLA
Vivek Basnal
Manish Chatrath
Bhakta Charan Das Ex Union Minister
Kuljit Singh Nagra

Special Invitees

[4]

Member party Position
Depender Hooda MP
Kuldeep Bishnoi MLA
Chinta Mohan Ex-MP
Sachin Rao Incharge Training
Sushmita Dev President, AIMC
Lalji Desai Chief Organiser ,Seva Dal
G. Sanjeeva Reddy President, INTUC
Neeraj Kundan President, NSUI
Srinivas BV President, IYC

Criticism

The Congress has not held internal elections to CWC for nearly 20 years and last elections were held in 1998.[5] In 2017 Election Commission ordered it to hold internal elections[6] but as of 2020 no elections were held.[7] When Congress was trying to forge an alliance with ideologically opposite Shiv Sena in Maharashtra in 2019, Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam publicly urged Sonia Gandhi to dissolve the CWC, saying "they cannot be trusted anymore."[8] Ever since Rahul Gandhi's resignation as party president in July 2019, there is persistent confusion over whether he continues to be a CWC member or not.[9] A paper by Observer Research Foundation calls a large number of CWC members "unprincipled, opportunists and self-serving individuals for whom self-interest is paramount."[10]

See also

References
  1. "Towards a More Competitive Party System in India", Ram Joshi and Kirtidev Desai, Asian Survey, Vol. 18, No. 11. (Nov., 1978), pp. 1091-1116.
  2. https://www.inc.in/en/congress-working-committee/members
  3. https://www.inc.in/en/congress-working-committee/permanent-invitees
  4. https://www.inc.in/en/congress-working-committee/special-invitees
  5. "Nobody But Rahul, Says Congress Leader Whose Father Ran vs Sonia Gandhi". Archived from the original on 12 August 2019. Retrieved 23 August 2020.
  6. "Election Commission Tells Congress to Hold Internal Elections by June 30". Retrieved 23 August 2020.
  7. Pankaj Vohra (8 August 2020). "EC can freeze Congress symbol or initiate action if party remains leaderless". Retrieved 23 August 2020.
  8. https://web.archive.org/web/20200206174034/https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/congress-defamed-rahul-gandhi-should-return-to-lead-sanjay-nirupam-after-maharashtra-twist-2137334
  9. https://web.archive.org/web/20200226123542/https://www.news18.com/news/politics/old-grudge-unfulfilled-demands-why-rahul-gandhi-remained-absent-from-congresss-meet-on-delhi-riots-2516309.html
  10. https://web.archive.org/web/20200314154627/https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/congress-moving-towards-extinction-54571/
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