Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge.
Credit: PTI Photo
New Delhi: Congress on Friday announced a new team of 66 Secretaries, including seven from Karnataka, and eight Joint Secretaries in the first large-scale reshuffle in these ranks after Mallikarjun Kharge took over as party president.
Of the 66 new Secretaries, 34 of them are new faces while 32 from the old team have been retained. In the outgoing team, there were 60 Secretaries of which 28 have been dropped while among Joint Secretaries, three are new faces while three have been dropped. Eleven Secretaries are women.
Karnataka leaders PV Mohan, Mansoor Ali Khan, BM Sandeep and Arathi Krishna continue to be Secretaries in the new team while MLC UB Venkatesh, former MLA Anjali Nimbalkar and Suraj Hegde have been inducted as secretaries in the new team.
Mohan and Khan have been assigned Kerala while Sandeep will be looking after Maharashtra and Krishna will continue to handle Indian Overseas Congress and Foreign Affairs. Venkatesh has been assigned Maharashtra and Hegde has been given Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.
Secretaries Roji M John, Mayura S Jayaumar, Abhishek Dutt and P Gopi have been assigned Karnataka and would be assisting General Secretary Randeep Surjewala in handling party affairs in the state.
Pranav Jha and Gaurav Pandhi have been appointed Secretaries in the Office of the Congress president while Vineet Punia and Ruchira Chaturvedi will be secretaries in the communication department.
Former Mahila Congress president Netta DS’ouza, former NSU president Neeraj Kundan and Rajasthan MLA Divya Maderna have also been appointed Secretaries. Odisha MP Saptagiri Ulaka has also been reappointed as Secretary.