Friday, January 6 2006 18:37 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Ahmed Patel continues to be the political secretary to Congress President Sonia Gandhi while B K Hariprasad and V Narayanswamy were inducted as General Secretaries as Gandhi reconstituted Congress Working Committee and the AICC Secretariat.

Gandhi retained Ambika Soni, Ashok Gehlot, Digvijay Singh, Janardhan Dwivedi, Margaret Alva and Mukul Wasnik as General Secretaries but Satyavrat Chaturvedi has been dropped but made a permanent invitee to CWC, AICC General Secretary Janardhan Dwivedi announced today.

With Rahul Gandhi's name does not figure for any organisational post, party circles expected he could be given a responsibility in the Government.

Besides Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, other members of CWC include Arjun Singh, A K Antony, Mohsina Kidwai, Pranab Mukherjee, Saif-ud-din Soz, Shivraj Patil and Urmila Singh. Moti Lal Vohra continues to be the treasurer.

Soz was brought into CWC for the first time and represents Jammu and Kashmir after senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad took over the reins of Chief Ministership of the state.

Rajya Sabha MP Karan Singh was appointed Chairman of the party's foreign affairs department, a post earlier held by former External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh.

Natwar Singh had been dropped from CWC following the Volcker report which named him as a beneficiary of the oil-for-food scam during Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq in 2001.