# Congress Working Committee

The Congress Working Committee (CWC) is the executive committee of the Indian National Congress. It was formed in December 1920 at Nagpur session of INC which was headed by C. Vijayaraghavachariar. It is composed of senior party leaders and is responsible for taking decisions on important policy and organizational matters, as well as guiding and directing the party's activities and campaigns at the national level. It typically consists of fifteen members elected from the All India Congress Committee (AICC). The CWC is headed by the party president, who is elected by the members of the All India Congress Committee (AICC), the party's central governing body.
The Working Committee has had different levels of power in the party at different times. In the period prior to Indian independence in 1947, the Working Committee was the centre of power, and the Working President was frequently more active than the Congress President. In the period after 1967, when the Congress Party split for the first time (between factions loyal to Indira Gandhi and those led by the Syndicate of regional leaders including Kamaraj, Prafulla Chandra Sen, Ajoy Mukherjee, and Morarji Desai), the power of the Working Committee declined; but Indira Gandhi's triumph in 1971 led to a re-centralisation of power away from the states and the All-India Congress Committee and caused the Working Committee in Delhi to once again be the paramount decision-making body of the party. The centralised nature of Congress decision making has since caused observers in the states to informally describe instructions from Delhi as coming from the High Command.

## Composition of Congress Working Committee

Sources:
President
| Name | Portrait | Position in government |
| Mallikarjun Kharge | | Member of ParliamentLeader of the Opposition, Rajya Sabha |
Members
| S. No | Member | Position in government |
| 1. | Sonia Gandhi | Member of ParliamentFormer Congress President |
| 2. | Manmohan Singh | Former Member of ParliamentFormer Prime Minister of India |
| 3. | Rahul Gandhi | Member of ParliamentLeader of the Opposition, Lok SabhaFormer INC President |
| 4. | A. K. Antony | Former Member of Parliament |
| 5. | Ambika Soni | Former Member of Parliament |
| 6. | Abhishek Singhvi | Member of Parliament |
| 7. | Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury | Former Member of Parliament |
| 8. | Ajay Maken | Member of Parliament |
| 9. | Anand Sharma | Former Member of Parliament |
| 10. | Jairam Ramesh | Member of Parliament |
| 11. | Gaikhangam Gangmei | Former Deputy Chief Minister, Manipur |
| 12. | Jitendra Singh | Former Member of Parliament |
| 13. | Selja Kumari | Member of Parliament |
| 14. | Dr Lal Thanhawla | Former Chief Minister of Mizoram |
| 15. | Mukul Wasnik | Member of ParliamentFormer Union Minister of India |
| 16. | Charanjit Singh Channi | Member of ParliamentFormer Chief Minister of Punjab |
| 17. | Priyanka Gandhi Vadra | Member of ParliamentCongress Party General Secretary |
| 18. | P. Chidambaram | Member of ParliamentFormer Union Minister of India |
| 19. | Randeep Surjewala | Member of Parliament |
| 20. | N. Raghuveera Reddy | Former AP Congress President |
| 21. | Tariq Anwar | Member of Parliament |
| 22. | Sachin Pilot | Former Member of ParliamentFormer Deputy Chief Minister of Rajasthan |
| 23. | Tamradhwaj Sahu | Former Member of the Legislative Assembly |
| 24. | Shashi Tharoor | Member of Parliament |
| 25. | Salman Khurshid | Former Union MinisterFormer Member of Parliament |
| 26. | Digvijaya Singh | Member of ParliamentFormer Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh |
| 27. | Deepak Babaria | Member of the Legislative Assembly |
| 28. | Meira Kumar | Former Speaker of Lok Sabha |
| 29. | Jagdish Thakor | Former Gujarat Congress President |
| 30. | Ghulam Ahmad Mir | Former J & K Congress President |
| 31. | Avinash Pandey | Former Member of Parliament |
| 32. | Deepa Dasmunsi | Former Member of Parliament |
| 33. | Gaurav Gogoi | Member of ParliamentDeputy Leader of Indian National Congress in Lok Sabha |
| 34. | Syed Naseer Hussain | Member of Parliament |
| 35. | Kamleshwar Patel | Member of the Legislative Assembly |
| 36. | K. C. Venugopal | Member of Parliament |
| 37 | Balasaheb Thorat | Former Minister, Government of Maharashtra |

## Permanent Invitees

| S.no | Member | Position |
| 1. | Ajoy Kumar | Ex MP Lok Sabha |
| 2. | Rajeev Shukla | MP |
| 3. | A. Chellakumar | Ex MP Lok Sabha |
| 4. | Pratibha Singh | Ex MP Lok Sabha |
| 5. | Pawan Kumar Bansal | ex MP, (Chandigarh) |
| 6. | Veerappa Moily | ex MP, (Karnataka) |
| 7. | Harish Rawat | Former Chief Minister of Uttarakhand |
| 8. | Bharatsinh Solanki | Ex MP |
| 9. | Mohan Prakash | ex MLA, Rajasthan |
| 10. | Ramesh Chennithala | MLA, Kerala |
| 11. | B. K. Hariprasad | MLC, Karnataka |
| 12. | Manish Tewari | MP, chandigarh |
| 13. | Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa | MP |
| 14. | Deepender Singh Hooda | MP, Haryana |
| 15. | Devender Yadav | Ex MLA |
| 16. | Girish Chodankar | |
| 17. | Gurdeep Singh Sappal | |
| 18. | T. Subbarami Reddy | ex MP, Andhra Pradesh |
| 19. | K Raju | |
| 20. | Manikrao Thakre | Ex MLA |
| 21. | Chandrakant Handore | MP Rajya Sabha, ex MLAMaharashtra |
| 22. | Meenakshi Natarajan | ex MP, Madhya Pradesh |
| 23. | Manickam Tagore | MP |
| 24. | Phulo Devi Netam | MP, Chhattisgarh |
| 25. | Damodar Raja Narasimha | Cabinet Minister, Telangana |
| 26. | Sudip Roy Barman | MLA, Tripura |
| 27. | Kanhaiya Kumar | |
| 28. | Sachin Rao |

## Special Invitees

| S. No | Member | Position |
| 1. | Alka Lamba | President, All India Mahila Congress |
| 2. | Varun Choudhary | President, NSUI |
| 3. | Srinivas BV | President, IYC |
| 4. | Lalji Desai | Chief Organiser ,Seva Dal |
| 5. | Supriya Shrinate | Chairman, Social Media & Platforms |
| 6. | Challa Vamshi Chand Reddy | Ex MLA |
| 7. | Kodikunnil Suresh | MP |
| 8. | Yashomati Thakur | MLA |
| 9. | Gidugu Rudra Raju | ex President APCC |
| 10. | Ganesh Godiyal | Ex MLA |
| 11. | Praniti Shinde | MP |
| 12. | M. M. Pallam Raju | ex-MP |
| 13. | Pawan Khera | Chairman, Media & Publicity |
| 14. | Vikar Rasool Wani | Ex President J&KPCC |
| 15. | Naseem Khan | Ex MLA Maharashtra |

## Criticism

The Congress has not held internal elections for CWC for nearly 20 years and the last elections were held in 1998. In 2017 Election Commission ordered it to hold internal elections but as of 2020 no elections were held. When Congress was trying to forge an alliance with ideologically opposite Shiv Sena in Maharashtra in 2019, Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam publicly urged Sonia Gandhi to dissolve the CWC, saying "they cannot be trusted anymore." In 2020 a paper by Observer Research Foundation calls a large number of CWC members "unprincipled, opportunists and self-serving individuals for whom self-interest is paramount."