New Delhi, March 4 (IANS): Sonia Gandhi Friday reconstituted the Congress Working Committee, the party's most influential policy making body, retaining key leaders like Rahul Gandhi and Digvijay Singh and making changes in key states including trouble-torn Andhra Pradesh.
Apart from Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the new working committee will have Pranab Mukerjee, A.K. Antony, Rahul Gandhi, Motilal Vora, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Digvijay Singh, Janardan Dwivedi, Mukul Wasnik, B.K. Hariprasad, Ahmed Patel and Ambika Soni.
Dwivedi, who announced the office-bearers, said some vacancies had been kept in CWC by the Congress president.
The CWC will have 19 members, 17 permanent invitees and five special invitees.
The office-bearers include nine general secretaries, eight in-charge of states, and 33 secretaries.
The new CWC members include former Haryana minister Birender Singh, former MPs Dhani Ram Shandil and Madhusudan Mistry, leader from Assam Hemo Prova Saikia and Orissa MP Sushila Tiriya.
Home Minister P. Chidambaram has been included in the working committee as a permanent invitee.
The party has retained Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Mukul Wasnik as general secretaries. Party secretary Mohan Prakash has been elevated as a permanent invitee and given charge of crucial states of Maharashtra, Gujarat and Jammu and Kashmir.
Party spokesman Shakeel Ahmed has also been included in the working committee as a permanent invitee along with Gulchain Singh Charak, a leader from Jammu and Kashmir.
Ahmed has been made in charge of the election-bound state of West Bengal, Andaman and Nicobar islands and Jharkhand and Charak of Bihar, Punjab and Chandigarh.
Shandil has been given charge of Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and Mizoram.
Party MP K. Keshava Rao was incharge of West Bengal, which will go to assembly polls in May.
Azad has been given charge of sensitive state of Andhra Pradesh, which is seeing an agitation for a separate state of Telangana. Law Minister M. Veerapa Moily was the incharge of the state.
Azad will continue to be incharge of poll-bound Tamil Nadu apart from Puducherry.
Digvijay Singh will continue to be general secretary in charge of Uttar Pradesh and Assam.
Madhusudan Mistry will be incharge of poll-bound Kerala apart from Karnataka and Lakshadweep.
Party MP Mohsina Kidwai was incharge of Kerala. She has now been made in charge of the women's wing.
Rahul Gandhi will continue to be general secretary incharge of Youth Congress and National Students Union of India (NSUI).