Sonia names Oraon as Jharkhand party chief

New Delhi, Aug 27 (IANS) Congress interim President Sonia Gandhi on Monday appointed Rameshwar Oraon as the Jharkhand unit chief and set up the Screening Committee for the upcoming Assembly elections with Chhattisgarh Minister T.S Singh Deo as its chairman.

In a release, Congress General Secretary, Organisation, K.C. Venugopal said: "The Congress President has constituted the Screening Committee for the forthcoming Jharkhand Assembly elections."

Gandhi named Deo as the chairman of the Screening Committee with senior party leader K. Suresh and Saleem Ahmed as its members. She also named former Union Minister, party General Secretary and Jharkhand in-charge R.P.N. Singh in the committee.

Oraon will also be in the Committee along with Alamgir Alam, who is presently the Congress Legislature Party chief in the state assembly.

Earlier in the day, Gandhi announced Oraon as Jharkhand party chief along with five working Presidents - Kamlesh Mahato Kamalesh, Irfan Ansari, Rajesh Thakur, Manas Sinha and Sanjay Paswan.

The appointments come weeks after Jharkhand Congress chief Ajoy Kumar resigned from his post on August 9, a day ahead of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting. He had earlier offered to step down following the party's drubbing in the Lok Sabha elections.

Kumar had also hit out at several senior party leaders, saying: "I have now come to see very clearly, some of our party leaders, the likes of Subodh Kant Sahay, Oraon, Pradeep Balmuchu, Chandrashekhar Dubey, Furqan Ansari and several other senior leaders have only sought to grab political posts for personal benefits".

Last month, supporters of Alok Kumar and Sahay locked horns at the state party headquarters. The party's senior leadership had summoned senior state leaders to the national capital in wake of the incident.