Sonia clips Soni's wings

Congress general secretary Nawal Kishore Sharma was sacked and Ambika Soni's wings clipped in a reshuffle undertaken by party president Sonia Gandhi ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.

Soni is no longer in charge of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. Former chief ministers Digvijay Singh and Ashok Gehlot have been made special invitees to the working committee.

Two new secretaries were appointed and five other special invitees were inducted into the party's working committee in the first such exercise after the party's debacle in three states.

Digvijay Singh has been given charge of Assam and Orissa, while Ashok Gehlot has been made incharge of Himachal Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

Soni, who has been made to take the rap for the party's dismal performance in the Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, will look after Jammu and Kashmir, Uttaranchal, Congress president's office and continue as chairperson of the media department.

The other five nominated to the working committee are Chaudhary Virendra Singh (Haryana), Prithviraj Chavan (Maharashtra), Priyaranjan Dasmunshi (West Bengal), Ramesh Chennithala (Kerala) and Balram Jakhar (Punjab). Chaudhary Virendra Singh is now in charge of the party in Uttar Pradesh.

Former Orissa state party unit chief Sharat Patnaik and KB Krishnamurthy, a member of Rajya Sabha, have been made All-India Congress Committee (AICC) secretaries.

The changes undertaken by Gandhi are not radical probably because she does not want to create more dissidence.

While Ahmed Patel will continue to be the political secretary to the Congress president and looking after Kerala and New Delhi, Moti Lal Vora who has been appointed president of the Chhattisgarh unit of the party will continue to be the AICC treasurer.

RK Dhavan, who was incharge of Bihar and Jharkhand has also been given Haryana. Another general secretary Kamal Nath, who was incharge of Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry, West Bengal and Orissa has been divested of Orissa.

Vayalar Ravi and Gulam Nabi Azad will continue to be incharge of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. Another old guard Mohsina Kidwai, who was looking after Punjab and Chandigarh has been given Rajasthan too but was divested of Haryana.

Chavan, who has been made a special invitee to the party working committee, has been assigned Gujarat in place of former Maharashtra Chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, who will now look after Karnataka.

Party chief whip in the Lok Sabha Priyaranjan Dasmunshi, inducted as special invitee to working committee, has been given Madhya Pradesh, earlier assigned to Soni.