Has Maken's appointment balanced North-South power equations in Congress?

New Delhi: The appointment of senior leader Ajay Maken as the treasurer of the Congress seems to have restored the balance of power between the North and the South in the grand old party.

Though the Gandhis remain the uncrowned rulers of the Congress, the power balance had shifted to South India after the appointment of Mallikarjun Kharge, who is from Karnataka, as the party chief last year.

Till then, the general secretary in-charge of the organisation KC Venugopal, who is from Kerala and also considered the eyes and ears of Rahul Gandhi, had virtually been running the party.

The dominance of South India had also resulted in strong resentment within the party from those belonging to the Hindi heartland or popularly known as the cow belt.

Congress workers from North India have been repeatedly complaining that Venugopal has a strong language barrier given that he doesn't understand Hindi and speaks in broken English.

As a result, they claimed that quite often it becomes difficult for them to make him understand their problems.

On the other hand, Kharge is a polyglot, who can speak Hindi, Urdu, Kannada, Marathi, Telugu, and English but being the Congress president his busy schedule restricts his interactions with party workers.

It is said that Rahul Gandhi opted for Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency in Kerala in 2019 on the insistence of Venugopal, a move that eventually resulted in his defeat from the family pocket borough of Amethi in Uttar Pradesh, the country's politically important state that sends the highest 80 lawmakers to the Lower House of Parliament.

With Maken's appointment, a flurry of activities could be seen at the Congress headquarters at 24, Akbar Road in Delhi with party workers from North Indian states descending on the national capital to meet him.

At times, it becomes difficult for him to accommodate all the visitors in his office room, and hence shifts to the lawns to meet them. They have finally found someone whom they can communicate with. This has also balanced the regional power equations in the grand old party.