In the wake of defeats after defeats at various levels in states across the country over the last few years, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and its vice-president Rahul Gandhi have now finally started to revamp and restructure the All India Congress Committee (AICC) besides various state party units thoroughly.    

As part of this exercise, the Congress on Thursday announced the appointment of Avinash Pande as the AICC general secretary in charge of Rajasthan affairs. Rajasthan is bound for polls by December 2018.

An ex-MP, Pandey has been an AICC secretary so far. He will be assisted in his new role by a new, young team of four AICC secretaries including Vivek Bansal, Qazi Mohammed Nizamuddin, Devendra Yadav and Tarun Kumar, according to the AICC leader in-charge of its communication department Randeep Surjewala. 

Sonia and Rahul also appointed new presidents for Punjab and Uttarakhand party units, Surjewala said. .
The ex-Punjab ministerSunil Jakhar was appointed as the new Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president for Punjab. He has thus replaced Capt Amarinder Singh who has become the Punjab Chief Minister following the recent state assembly polls.

Pritam Singh has been appointed as the new Uttarakhand Congress chief, who had replaced Kishore Upadhyay.

The Congress leadership also appointed Vivek Tankha, a Rajya Sabha member from Madhya Pradesh, as the new chairman of the AICC’s Legal and Human Rights Department.

As part of the continuing Congress's restructuring, the party president and vice president have completed the broad organisational rejig in four states ~ Gujarat, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Goa ~ so far.The former Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot was recently appointed as the AICC general secretary in charge of Gujarat affairs. Gujarat is heading for assembly elections slated for the end of this year. 

Sonia and Rahul have appointed 17 new office-bearers, 10 of whom are less than 50 years of age, and seven are from backward and vulnerable sections, Surjewala said underlining that the new teams reflected a "mix of youth and experience". 

The long-pending Congress’s organisational election is also likely to be undertaken and completed by late 2017.