Congress gears up for Lok Sabha polls with new war room and publicity committee 

Congress appoints 5-member "central war room" and publicity committee for Lok Sabha polls, signalling generational shift.

Stepping up its preparations for the Lok Sabha polls, the Congress on January 6 constituted a publicity committee with party treasurer Ajay Maken as convenor and a five member “central war room”.

The publicity committee also has party general secretaries Jairam Ramesh and KC Venugopal along with Congress administration in charge Gurdeep Singh Sappal, media and publicity department head Pawan Khera and the social media chairperson Supriya Shrinate.

The party also constituted a ‘central war room’ for the general elections. The average age of the five members is 39-years signalling a generational shift in the decision-making process of the party.

Vaibhav Walia, who is currently secretary communication will head the communications war room. Sasikanth Senthil S, a former IAS officer who quit to join the Congress in 2019 will chair the organisational war room. The other members are Varun Santhosh, Gokul Butail, Naveen Sharma and Capt. Arvind Kumar would be the vice-chairmen in the organisational war room.

Mr. Santhosh has been attached with the Research and Communication Departments of the party. He was also associated with the party’s 2019 campaign. Mr. Butail is joint secretary with the party and principal advisor to Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister. Capt. Kumar is general secretary in the party’s Rajasthan unit. Mr. Sharma is joint secretary in the party and has been handling the Congress’s administration for many years.

The appointments come a day after the Congress constituted five screening committees for shortlisting candidates for the Lok Sabha elections, due in April-May. The party has divided all states and Union territories into five clusters for this purpose.