New Delhi: Senior ministers P Chidambaram, Salman Khurshid, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma, Shashi Tharoor and Jyotiraditya Scindia were brought in as spokespersons for the Congress as per party's Vice President Rahul Gandhi's plans to bring more punch to party's media strategy ahead of 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
While the four ministers Chidambaram, Azad, Sharma, Khurshid and AICC general secretary Mukul Wasnik have been designated senior spokespersons, Tharoor and Scindia are among the 13 spokespersons appointed by the party.
The need to strengthen the media team of AICC was being felt for a long time and it has been an area of focus for Rahul, who was instrumental in organising a series of media workshops and talent hunt to scout new media faces for the Congress.
A number of faces included in the list of spokespersons and television panelists this time have been close aides of Rahul and have Youth Congress or NSUI background.
Mahila Congress chief Shobha Oza and former UPCC chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi have been included in the team of AICC spokespersons. It is for the first time in last many years that the AICC has two women spokespersons at a time.
After Jayanthi Natarajan was made a minister in UPA-II, party MP Renuka Chaudhary had replaced her as Congress spokesperson. Last year she was also dropped and since then there was no regular woman spokesperson in AICC, though Oza came for formal briefings once or twice.
Tharoor, who is in thick of media glare after his wife Sunanda Pushkar's sudden death has also been included in the list. Party MP Abhishek Singhvi, who was dropped over a CD controversy in May 2012, is back as spokesperson while Bhakta Charan Das has been dropped from the list.
Meem Afzal, who was one of the national spokespersons of AICC media team is also out, but he has been accommodated in the 24-member Congress team of television panelists.
The new list of the 24-member team of media panelists includes Rahul's aides Ashok Tanwar, Meenakshi Natarajan and Mukesh Nayak, besides Jammu and Kashmir PCC chief Saifuddin Soz's son Salman Soz.
The lists of new spokespersons and media panelists have this time been approved jointly by Sonia Gandhi and Rahul, a further indication of the Congress Vice President taking the centrestage. Earlier, such lists used to have the approval of the Congress President alone.
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