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The Times of India
The Times of India
National
Kumar Shakti Shekhar | TNN

Why Jairam Ramesh replacing Surjewala as Congress’s media head has Prashant Kishor’s stamp

NEW DELHI: In what may seem to be a sudden development, newly-elected Rajya Sabha MP Randeep Singh Surjewala was removed as the Congress general secretary in-charge of communication on Thursday night. He was replaced with former Union minister Jairam Ramesh as party general secretary in-charge of communication, publicity and media including social and digital media "with immediate effect".

The crucial change comes at a time when the Congress leaders and workers have hit the streets to protest the grilling of party leader Rahul Gandhi by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the National Herald case on three days this week.

Rahul has been questioned for 30 hours between June 13 and June 15. He initially sought one day’s break on June 16. He subsequently requested the ED to permit him to appear on June 20 as he had to attend to his mother and Congress president Sonia Gandhi who is admitted to a hospital in Covid-related health issues.

The Congress leaders and workers are out on the streets in protest against the questioning calling the ED’s action as “vendetta politics”.

Surjewala was replaced by Ramesh in the midst of high drama being witnessed not just in the national capital but also in other parts of the country. This gave the impression of a suddenness.

Playing up on Surjewala’s replacement, the BJP sought to highlight the “internal bickerings” in the Congress. BJP's in-charge of national information and technology department Amit Malviya tweeted the Congress’s official communique to prove his point.

Malviya said, “Congress’s internal bickering finds its way to official communique… KC Venugopal, it seems, couldn’t hide his glee after Surjewala was removed as AICC in-charge for communication. He was ‘thankfully relieved’.”

However, if the Congress sources are to be believed, the shuffle was a planned development which coincided during these trying times for the Congress.

A senior party leader, while talking to TOI, said, “The change was planned around the party’s three-day Chintan Shivir held at Udaipur in Congress-ruled Rajasthan from May 13. However, it got delayed due to extraneous reasons. It was finally taken up a week ago, just before the ED questioning of Rahul Gandhi started. Finally, it was implemented on Thursday.”

Ramesh is credited with coining ‘Aam aadmi ka haath, Congress party ke saath’ before the 2004 Lok Sabha election which played an instrumental role in the party defeating the BJP-led NDA which had played up the slogan ‘Shining India’.

Ramesh is active on social media and he has about two years to try and turn the Congress’s fortunes in the 2024 Lok Sabha election.

Prashant Kishor stamp

Sources said the replacement of Surjewala has the stamp of election strategist Prashant Kishor who was engaged in talks with the Congress for joining it and subsequently revamping it earlier this year. However, the talks failed and Kishor admitted to the talks by posting a tweet on April 26.

He said, “I declined the generous offer of #Congress to join the party as part of the EAG (Empowered Action Group) and take responsibility for the elections. In my humble opinion, more than me the party needs leadership and collective will to fix the deep rooted structural problems through transformational reforms.”

During talks with the Congress leadership, Kishor is believed to have made a presentation for the party's revival. He dealt with diagnosis, prescription and treatment needed to revive the party.

As part of treatment, Kishor recommended five strategic decisions that the Congress needed to take immediately. They were to fix the leadership issue, solve alliance conundrums, enforce structural changes, engage 15,000 grassroots leaders and activate 1 crore foot soldiers and work to create an ecosystem of digital influencers, supportive media and propagation mechanisms.

The sources said overhauling the media and communication team was one of the suggestions made by Kishor in the presentation.

In fact, this is the second decision which the Congress seems to have taken on the basis of Kishor’s suggestion for the party’s revival and democratisation. The first was implementing the ‘one man, one post’ formula.

On April 28, former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath stepped down from his post of leader of opposition in the state assembly. Till then, he was holding two party posts - that of Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee president and Congress legislature party (CLP) leader in the assembly.

Following his resignation as CLP leader, Nath remains only as the Madhya Pradesh Congress president.

The sources said several more changes are in the offing in the days and weeks.

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