Congress rejig: Is KC Venugopal on his way out?

New Delhi: The much-awaited reshuffle in the Congress party is expected to take place anytime soon.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge is giving a final shape to his new team of office bearers. The revamp got delayed due to the assembly elections in Karnataka. The exercise was to be carried out soon after the party's 85th plenary session held at Raipur in Chhattisgarh from February 24 to 26 this year.

Also read: How Venugopal's continuation is bad news for Kharge?

Kharge will also reconstitute the Congress Working Committee (CWC), the party's highest decision-making body. It was dissolved just before the Raipur plenary and replaced with a steering panel for the Raipur plenary where the All India Congress Committee (AICC) unanimously authorised Kharge to reconstitute the CWC by nominating its members.

Congress sources said that party general secretary in-charge of organisation KC Venugopal, who is considered the 'Man Friday' of Rahul Gandhi, is likely to be dropped from the high-profile post that he assumed in January 2019, a few months ahead of the Lok Sabha elections then.

Also read: ​​Why is KC Venugopal a liability for Rahul Gandhi?

He might continue as a general secretary and could be given the charge of a state, probably Tamil Nadu.

The names that are doing the rounds as his replacement include Randeep Singh Surjewala and Bhanwar Jitendra Singh.

Surjewala's role and functioning as the party's general secretary in-charge of Karnataka had been appreciated by all in the Congress. It is said that he camped continuously in Karnataka for the past eight months and delivered the state for the party. The Congress ousted the BJP comprehensively by winning 135 of the total 224 seats. The BJP won 66 seats.

Also read: Will Kharge remove KC Venugopal on popular demand?

On the other hand, Jitendra Singh, a royal from Alwar in Rajasthan, is considered close to the Gandhi family and had worked with Rahul Gandhi right from the beginning. He was Rahul Gandhi's "eyes and ears" when he became the general secretary in-charge of Youth Congress and the NSUI (National Students Union of India) in 2007.

Among other general secretaries who are likely to be dropped include Oommen Chandy, who is unwell for a long time now, Mukul Wasnik and Avinash Pande (Jharkhand).

The in-charge of states who could be shown the door include Manickam Tagore (Goa), Devendra Yadav (Uttarakhand), Dr A Chella Kumar (Odisha/West Bengal), Bhakta Charan Das (Bihar/Manipur/Mizoram), Dinesh Gundu Rao (Tamil Nadu/Puducherry), HK Patil (Maharashtra), Raghu Sharma (Gujarat), Manish Chatrath (Arunachal Pradesh/Meghalaya) and Harish Chaudhary (Punjab).

A large number of secretaries are also going to be dropped.

According to the Udaipur declaration that was adopted at the end of a three-day 'Chintan Shivir (brainstorming session)' in May 2022, three new departments -- Public Insight department, National Training and Election Management -- will be set up to strengthen the organisation.