Rahul Gandhis new point man for Andhra Pradesh

June 21, 2013 14:55

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi has entrusted AICC secretary S Thirunavukkarasar with the responsibility of handling Andhra Pradesh, a state that is considered crucial to the party's chances of doing well in the next Lok Sabha elections.

Who is S Thirunavukkarasar, you ask?

He was a minister in the MGR and Jayalalitha cabinets in Tamil Nadu -- and his name was spelt as Thirunavukkarasu then. He joined the BJP and was a minister in the Vajpayee government as a minister of state for shipping and transport. An able organiser, he joined the Congress in 2009 and lost as MLA in the Sivaganga assembly constituency, a leg of P Chidambaram's parliamentary constituency.

Thirunavukkarasar has hit the ground running, it seems. On Thursday he met party stalwarts P Chidambaram and GK Vasan in New Delhi. Today he is meeting Digvijaya Singh to discuss how to strengthen the party in the southern state.

Thirunavukkarasar and Digvijaya in a sense go back a long way -- the former was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Madhya Pradesh, the latter's fiefdom, during the NDA rule.

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