Rahul Gandhi to lead Congress campaign in 2014

New Delhi : The Congress Thursday formally entrusted Rahul Gandhi with the task of leading the party’s campaign in the next Lok Sabha elections as head of a committee that will formulate and implement its strategy. Rahul will head the six-member election coordination committee constituted by Congress president Sonia Gandhi today, along with three sub-groups, for the elections due in 2014.

Besides Rahul, the coordination committee comprises Ahmed Patel, Janardan Dwivedi, Digvijaya Singh, Madhusudan Mistry and Jairam Ramesh. Sources said the fact that Rahul’s name heads the list should be construed as indicating his top position in the committee.

The pre-poll alliance sub-group, headed by A K Antony, includes M Veerappa Moily, Mukul Wasnik, Suresh Pachauri, Jitendra Singh and Mohan Prakash.

The communications and publicity sub-group, headed by Digvijaya Singh, includes Ambika Soni, Manish Tewari, Deepender Hooda, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Rajiv Shukla and Bhakta Charan Das.

The manifesto and government programmes’ sub-group, also headed by Antony, includes P Chidambaram, Sushil Kumar Shinde, Anand Sharma, Salman Khurshid, Sandeep Dikshit, Ajit Jogi, Renuka Chowdhury, P L Punia and Mohan Gopal as “special invitee”.