Reshuffle over, stage set for AICC reconstitution

New Delhi, Jan 20 (PTI) With the reshuffle in the UnionCouncil of Ministers over, the stage is set for areconstitution of the All India Congress Committee.

Congress President Sonia Gandhi has almost finalised thecontours of the new AICC secretariat, which could be announcedin a couple of days, sources said.

The reshuffle in AICC, which comes after the party''sdebacle in Bihar assembly election and ahead of polls in fivestates, is likely to introduce some new faces.

Gandhi has already been authorised to nominate the entireCongress Working Committee at the meeting of AICC held twomonths back.

The apex policy making body of the party has 23 membersbesides the Prime Minister and the Congress President who areex-officio members.

As per the practice, half of this 23 CWC members areelected while the other half is nominated. This time it willbe entirely an exercise of nomination for CWC as electionscould not be held for the party body.

Four party general secretaries had been inducted into theUnion Council of Ministers after the UPA-II government assumedoffice, as a result of which they were left with little timeto concentrate on party work.

They were AICC general secretaries Ghulam Nabi Azad,Mukul Wasnik, Prithviraj Chavan and V Narayanasami.

Chavan later resigned from the ministry after beingelected as Maharashtra Chief Minister. All of them still holddual charges as ministers and party office-bearers.

In addition to the general secretaries, some cabinetministers also hold dual charges as party in-charge of states.

Union Minister M Veerappa Moily is the party in-charge ofAndhra Pradesh while Defence Minister A K Antony looks afterMaharashtra.

The party has held that "in principle" it favours theone-person-one-post formula but there could be someexceptions.

Sources said that the upcoming reshuffle in AICC islikely to take into all these issues including the upcomingassembly elections in West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu,Puducherry and Assam. They added that the process for the AICCreshuffle is in the final stage.