NEW DELHI: Days after 23 senior Congress leaders wrote a letter to interim president Sonia Gandhi, calling for a shake-up in the top leadership positions, the party has sent a clear message to the dissenters. On Thursday, as Congress president Sonia Gandhi formed a five-member panel in the two Houses, many of the letter signatories found themselves excluded. Gandhi family confidants and two young MPs were elevated to senior positions.

The party, including Rahul Gandhi, had strongly criticised the leaders who wrote the letter which went public, saying the right forum to take up the issues was the CWC meeting and not the media. Rahul also questioned the timing of the letter, saying it came at a time when Sonia was unwell and in hospital, and the party was making efforts to defuse the political crisis in Rajasthan. The signatories in the letter included Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma, Kapil Sibal, Mukul Wasnik, Jitin Prasada, Manish Tewari, Shashi Tharoor and ex-Haryana CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda.

In the Lok Sabha, Gandhi elevated young Assam MP Gaurav Gogoi, son of former chief minster Tarun Gogoi and widely considered a Gandhi family loyalist, making him the deputy leader of Congress, while Ludhiana MP Ravneet Singh Bittu was made the party's whip. The two, along with leader of the Congress in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, chief whip K. Suresh and another whip Manickam Tagore would form a five-member committee of floor leaders in the lower house.

This was widely considered as a message to dissenters like Shashi Tharoor and Manish Tewari in Lok Sabha, who were reportedly aspiring for Lok Sabha positions.

In the Rajya Sabha, Ahmed Patel, K.C. Venugopal and Jairam Ramesh will be part of the Rajya Sabha Committee, which will take a call on the party's floor strategy; the group will also include leader of opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad and party's deputy leader Anand Sharma. Azad and Sharma are signatories to the letter. However, former minister and senior Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal, who was also a signatory to the letter, did not find a place in the strategy committee.

Jairam Ramesh has been appointed the chief whip in Rajya Sabha, a post that fell vacant after Bhubaneswar Kalita quit the party and joined the BJP.

The appointments came ahead of the monsoon session of Parliament, which is likely to commence from September 14.

A day before, Sibal had spoke out against a UP Congress resolution denouncing Jitin Prasada, another signatory to the letter. He tweeted: "Unfortunate that Jitin Prasada is being officially targeted in UP. Congress needs to target the BJP with surgical strikes instead wasting its energy by targeting its own," he wrote.
A day before, Tharoor had also struck a conciliatory note. "I have been silent for 4 days on recent events in @incIndia because once the Congress president says the issue is behind us, it is the duty of all of us to work together constructively in the interests of the Party. I urge all my colleagues to uphold this principle and end the debate."

However, defending their move to send the letter, Azad said their effort was to make the party strong and active. He added that those who simply got "appointment cards" would continue to oppose their proposal. "What is the big deal if the letter was leaked? It is not a state secret to ask for the party to be strengthened and hold elections. Even during the time of Indira Gandhi Ji, the cabinet proceedings used to get leaked,” he said, reported ANI. Reacting to allegations that they had violated the party discipline by writing the letter, Azad said: “Those who were doing running commentary during CWC, were they not being indisciplined? Persons who were abusing us [for writing the letter], were they not being indisciplined? Shouldn't action be taken against them? We did not abuse anyone”. He said it was their victory that the party decided to elect a full-time president within six months.