Why is Kharge going for piecemeal changes?

New Delhi: Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has made some piecemeal changes in the party in recent weeks much to the disappointment of his party colleagues who are eagerly waiting for the organisational reshuffle for the past eight months now.

While Kharge appointed Member of Parliament Deepak Baij the new Chhattisgarh Congress president, he also named former Communist leader Kanhaiya Kumar the in-charge of National Students Union of India (NSUI), the grand old party's students’ wing.

Similarly, he named TS Singh Deo deputy chief minister in Chhattisgarh, Deepak Babaria in-charge of Haryana and Shaktisinh Gohil the new Gujarat Congress chief.

However, Kharge is yet to reconstitute the all-important Congress Working Committee (CWC), which was dissolved eight months ago.

Does this delay indicate an internal tussle? There may not be a rift within the party, but it does indicate a certain level of indecisiveness on the part of the Congress leadership. Kharge has clearly failed in ensuring that the Congress sheds its decades-old status quoist tag.

Perhaps Kharge and former Congress president Rahul Gandhi aided by his close associate KC Venugopal have not been able to evolve a consensus on certain names for the CWC and the team of office bearers.

Kharge and other senior leaders had been visibly upset over Venugopal’s continued interference in the decision-making, but they have failed in persuading Rahul Gandhi to rein in his ‘Man Friday’.

Uncertainty has also gripped many state units. Many Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chiefs and in-charges had put in their papers after the assembly elections in their respective states. They have been asked to continue till their replacements are appointed.

Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Delhi, Karnataka and West Bengal are some of the states where the Congress is expected to change its PCC chiefs.

Among general secretaries, Randeep Singh Surjewala (Karnataka), Avinash Pandey (Jharkhand), Jitendra Singh (Assam), Oommen Chandy (Andhra Pradesh), Tariq Anwar (Kerala) and Mukul Wasnik are likely to be dropped or shifted to other states.

Similarly, in-charges of Tamil Nadu (Dinesh Gundu Rao), Maharashtra (HK Patil) - both have become ministers in Karnataka, Odisha and West Bengal (Dr A Chella Kumar), Uttarakhand (Devender Yadav), Bihar (Bhakta Charan Das), Punjab (Harish Chaudhary), Gujarat (Raghu Sharma) and Himachal Pradesh (Rajeev Shukla) are likely to be replaced.

Kharge’s piecemeal changes have further added to the confusion and compounded the restlessness among the party leaders and cadre who were hoping to see some major organisational changes to see the Congress fully prepared for the grand electoral battle in 2024 Lok Sabha election.