From CK Nayak
NEW DELHI, Nov 20: Congress MP from Shillong, Vincent H Pala, was today appointed as convenor of the high level committee on national security by party president, Sonia Gandhi.
The committee on national security will have Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha, Ghulam Nabi Azad and party leaders Veerappa Moily and V Vaithilingam, as members.
The AICC chief set up three separate committees for discussing policy issues related to economic affairs, foreign affairs and national security, with former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh part of all the three panels.
Former finance minister P Chidambaram, and party leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Digvijaya Singh will be part of the economic affairs committee, Jairam Ramesh will be its convener.
The committee on foreign affairs will have Anand Sharma, Shashi Tharoor, Salman Khurshid and Saptagiri Ulaka. Khurshid will be the convener of the panel.
Interestingly, the committees feature four top dissident leaders – Anand Sharma, Shashi Tharoor, Ghulam Nabi Azad and Veerappa Moily – who had reacted against the Congress leadership after the Bihar poll debacle. Chidambaram also joined the dissidents at a later stage. The committee on national security will advise the party president on internal security matters which have gained significance after Chinese incursions on the border and heightened militancy in the bifurcated Jammu and Kashmir.
Talking to the media, Pala thanked the party president and Rahul Gandhi for bestowing him with the responsibility.
This is for the first time that the Shillong MP has been named in an AICC panel after he was dropped from the UPA Ministry and was assured that he would be drafted for party work.
Pala has been elected to the Lok Sabha three times consecutively despite his party biting the dust everywhere in the country including in Meghalaya was only made working president of the MPCC.
But his role in state politics has been checkmated due to perennial wrangling in the Meghalaya Congress.