Manmohan, Antony get berths in CWC

With Antony’s nomination, the southern States now have two members in the CWC, the other being K Vijayabhaskara Reddy who managed to scrape through in the election held at the recent party plenary in Calcutta.

While Kesri emphasised that these nominations would enhance the party’s image, he was evasive when asked what action would be taken against Congressmen like Satish Sharma and Shiela Kaul who are facing corruption charges. “Their cases are being properly examined,” was his reply.

The Congress chief instead came down upon the Opposition parties which, according to him, only paid lip-service to the cause of fighting corruption.

He recalled that the late Chimanbhai Patel had been adopted by the Opposition after Indira Gandhi had ousted him from the chief ministership of Gujarat at the height of the anti-corruption movement launched by Opposition parties.

Asked the reason behind the All India Congress Committee members not electing a single woman or those belonging to SCs and STs to the CWC, Kesri admitted that this “is our weakness”. When pointed out that if members belonging to these sections had been included in the so-called official panel they would have made it to the CWC, the Congress chief said that he did not want to talk about it now.

“All those elected to the 10 posts are our own people,” he said.Kesri made it clear that his party was not interested in joining the United Front Government, which it is supporting from outside.

“The question does not arise,” he said. To another query on whether the party would form a government, he replied that the Congress was focusing its energies on strengthening the party.