New faces likely in Cong media team

Haryana Minister Randip Surjewalais considered a good communicator and is likely to be drafted as a spokesperson

Congress could have some new faces in its media team after the assembly elections in the five states get over on December 8.

Sources in the party say a dozen new faces could be inducted in the team of television panelists while the team of AICC spokespersons could have three-four new paces. Some of the existing spokespersons might be given "rest", an euephemism for their being dropped.

If the AICC briefing today was any indication, Congress will have a new woman spokesperson. Today's press briefing was addressed by Mahila Congress chief Shobha Oza and former UPPCC chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi who accompanied party spokesperson P C Chacko.

The only woman spokesperson in the AICC Renuka Chowdhary is not briefing since October 18. An AICC functionary said she has been given "rest" but declined to go into whether her name has been dropped from the list of party spokespersons.

Before Chowdhary, Congress had another woman spokesperson in Jayanthi Natarajan who later became Union Minister. As such, one new woman face is all set to be included in the AICC team.

Haryana Minister Randip Surjewala, who has been briefing the media in AICC for some days, is considered a good communicator and is likely to be drafted as a spokesperson.

Currently, six spokersons are briefing the press in AICC-- P C Chacko, Bhakta Charan Das, Raj Babbar, Meem Afzal, Sandip Dikshit and Surjewala.

In the May 5 regij of the AICC communication department, Congress had dropped Rashid Alvi as Congress spokesperson bringing in a new team of eight spokespersons, retaining existing three and inducting five fresh faces.

The new faces were Raj Babbar, Shakeel Ahmed, Mohan Prakash, Meem Afzal and Bhakta Charan Das.

Renuka Chowdhury, Sandeep Dikshit and P C Chacko were retained as spokespersons.

Two of them, Mohan Prakash and Shakeel Ahmed, were later elevated as AICC general secretaries in June this year and had not been coming to brief the media since then.

There was speculation that Alvi, after being dropped as a party spokesperson, will be given some key charge but that did not happen.