Cong names Joshi, Maken in high-power coordination panel

Congress today brought in senior leaders C P Joshi and Ajay Maken into the party's high-power coordination committee headed by Rahul Gandhi for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
With their addition, the number of members of the committee, set up in November 2012, has gone up to eight.
It also inducted party General Secretary Digvijay Singh and Union minister Jairam Ramesh in the party's sub group on manifesto and government programmes headed by A K Antony, Party general secretary Janardan Dwivedi told PTI.
Party ideologue Mohan Gopal, a special invitee to this committee, has now been elevated as a member.

This sub-group has P Chidambaram, Sushilkumar Shinde, Anand Sharma, Salman Khurshid, Sandeep Dikshit, Ajit Jogi, Renuka Chowdhary and P L Punia as members.
Rahul was elevated as the party's Vice President at Congress Chintan Shivir in Jaipur in January. His heading the committee was interpreted as a clear signal for his larger role in the party then.
Senior leaders Ahmed Patel, Dwivedi, Digvijay Singh, Madhusudan Mistry and Ramesh are other members of the coordination panel.
Rahul had announced the setting up of the coordination group and sub-groups with specific tasks at the party's Samvad Baithak on November 9 at Surajkund last year, saying that "with a year and half left for the Lok Sabha elections, both party and government will have to work cohesively together to ensure that we secure a renewed mandate".