New Delhi, 21 January 2014

Former leader of opposition in Gujarat Shaktisinh Gohil has been appointed spokesperson of Indian National Congress. Ever since Gohil lost last assembly election from Bhavnagar district of Gujarat he was without any title of designation. Initially he identified himself as former leader of opposition, but later on he was mentioned as senior Congress leader in Gujarat Congress’s press releases. Now he has got the title of national spokesperson. Gohil is already playing a role of spokesperson for the party on national news channels.

Along with Gohil, 12 other leaders including Jyotiraditya Scindia, P.C. Chacko, Raj Babbar, Randeep Surjewala, Rita Bahuguna Joshi, Sandeep Dikshit, Sanjay Jha, Satyavrat Chaturvedi, Shakeel Ahmed, Shobha Ojha, apart from Tharoor and and Singhvi are also appointed as spokespersons.

The leaders above are titled as “Spokespersons”, while five leaders P. Chidambaram, Salman Khurshid, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma and Mukul Wasnik are appointed as “senior spokespersons”.

The Congress expanded its panel of spokespersons in an effort to put across its viewpoint in the run-up to the Lok Sabha election. The release said party president Sonia Gandhi and vice president Rahul Gandhi approved the appointments.

Party MP Abhishek Manu Singhvi, who quit as spokesperson in 2012 in the wake of a CD controversy, returned to the post.

The list of newly appointed 24 media panelists includes Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari, Minister of State for Home R.P.N. Singh, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Rajeev Shukla, Akhilesh Pratap Singh, Anant Gadgil, Ashok Tanwar, Balchandra Mungekar, Brijesh Kalappa, Chandan Yadav, C.R. Kesavan, Deepak Amin, Deepender Hooda, Krishna Byre Gowda, Meem Afzal, Meenakshi Natarajan, Mukesh Nayak, Nadeem Javed, P.L. Punia, Prem Chandra Mishra, Priyanka Chaturvedi, Ragini Nayak, Rajeev Gowda and Salman Soz and Sanjay Nirupam. They will put across its viewpoint on television and other media platforms and 30 panelists who would speak on the national media on issues concerning states.

The panelists on national media on state issues include Abdul Rasool Khan, Abhay Dubey, A. Narayan, Amrita Dhawan, Anil Bhardwaj, Barkha Shukla Singh, Bharat Kumar, Bhawana Jha, Chetan Rawal, Chitto Nysou, Dinesh Gundurao, Hilal Ahmed, Jaiveer Shergill, Jyoti Mani, Manik Tagore, Manoj Pandey, Mohammad Akbar, Mohit Sharma, Peter Alphonse, Pranav Jha, Ranju Ramawat, Rashmikant, Sachin Sawant, Sarwat Jehan Fatima, Shahnawaz Sheikh, Sulaiman Mohd Khan, V.T. Balram, Victor Keishing, Vidit Chaudhry and Vivek Bansal.