The Congress leadership had been planning to restructure its communication set-up for some time, but a series of gaffes in the last few months, topped by last week’s confusion over party vice president Rahul Gandhi’s meeting with the Chinese envoy, has resulted in a fast forwarding the process.
It has seen the wings of the party’s communications chief Randeep Surjewala clipped.
Strategy team
A top heavy communications strategy group has been constituted with 10 members. Six of them are over 60 —Mallikarjuna Kharge and Ghulam Nabi Azad, who head the party’s parliamentary wings in the two houses, and former cabinet ministers Anand Sharma, P. Chidambaram, Mani Shankar Aiyar and Jairam Ramesh. The two from the younger generation are Lok Sabha MPs Jyotiraditya Scindia and Sushmita Dev.
Mr Surjewala, who continues as communications department chief will be an ex-officio member of the group along with party MP Rajeev Gowda, who heads the party’s research department.
The communications department chief has not had senior leaders to advise him in the past.
Daily briefings back
The new communications strategy team, set up by party chief Sonia Gandhi, will now brief party spokespersons and others on policy matters after a meeting every day, reducing the tendency of individual Congress leaders, or spokespersons giving off the cuff sound bytes for TV channels.
It will bring back the daily meeting to discuss important issues of the day from which a considered party view will emerge for dissemination.
With Parliament commencing next week, party sources said, it was imperative that a structured system was put in place before July 17.
Though many senior leaders have been unhappy at the functioning of the communications department for a while, in recent months this dissatisfaction has grown.
It has seen the wings of the party’s communications chief Randeep Surjewala clipped.
Strategy team
A top heavy communications strategy group has been constituted with 10 members. Six of them are over 60 —Mallikarjuna Kharge and Ghulam Nabi Azad, who head the party’s parliamentary wings in the two houses, and former cabinet ministers Anand Sharma, P. Chidambaram, Mani Shankar Aiyar and Jairam Ramesh. The two from the younger generation are Lok Sabha MPs Jyotiraditya Scindia and Sushmita Dev.
Mr Surjewala, who continues as communications department chief will be an ex-officio member of the group along with party MP Rajeev Gowda, who heads the party’s research department.
The communications department chief has not had senior leaders to advise him in the past.
Daily briefings back
The new communications strategy team, set up by party chief Sonia Gandhi, will now brief party spokespersons and others on policy matters after a meeting every day, reducing the tendency of individual Congress leaders, or spokespersons giving off the cuff sound bytes for TV channels.
It will bring back the daily meeting to discuss important issues of the day from which a considered party view will emerge for dissemination.
With Parliament commencing next week, party sources said, it was imperative that a structured system was put in place before July 17.
Though many senior leaders have been unhappy at the functioning of the communications department for a while, in recent months this dissatisfaction has grown.
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