Rahul Gandhi in 22-member Cong coordination committee for UP

NEW DELHI: Congress MP Rahul Gandhi has been included in the party's 22-member coordination committee on Uttar Pradesh constituted by party President Sonia Gandhi.
    
The committee is headed by UP PCC chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi and has among its members AICC General Secretaries Mohsina Kidwai and Janardan Dwivedi as also Union Minister Mahavir Prasad, former Chief Minister Ram Naresh Yadav and several former PCC presidents, including Salman Khursheed.
    
AICC General Secretary Digvijay Singh, who is in-charge of Congress affairs in UP, is a special invitee in the committee along with party Secretary in-charge of the state.
    
Other members include Union Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal, former PCC chief Arun Kumar Singh Munna and Jagdambika Pal, former CLP leader Pramod Tiwari, Union Minister Akhilesh Das and six AICC secretaries from UP -- Rajiv Shukla, Nirmal Khatri, Bhola Pandey, Jitin Prasad, Abdul Mannan and Vivek Bansal.
    
Leaders of the CLP in UP Assembly and Council are members of the committee.
    
UP, a politically key state is a long haul for the Congress.
    
The Congress has fared poorly in the Assembly polls held earlier this year despite projecting Rahul as the 'face' of the party in the home state of the Nehru-Gandhi family.
    
Congress has for the last nearly two decades been in political wilderness in the state, which was once its bastion.