New Delhi: The Congress leadership on Thursday sent out a strong statement of intent by curbing the role of “Letter Writers” in Parliament even as Gulam Nabi Azad, one of the leading lights among the dissenters, reiterated the demand for elections in the working committee.

The party chief took a decision two days after a stormy CWC meeting. Congress appointed younger MPs Gaurav Gogoi as Deputy leader as Ravneet Bittu as VIP in Lok Sabha ignoring Shashi Tharoor and Mahesh Tewari who were part of the group of 23 dissidents, who wrote to party chief Sonia Gandhi calling for full time and effective leadership besides an elected CWC and constitution of a Parliamentary board. At the same time, Congress constituted a group of ten leaders to deal with the issues coming up in Parliament.

This panel includes Azad, who is the leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha, and Deputy Leader Anand Sharma, who was also a signatory. As well as loyalists Ahmed Patel, Jairam Ramesh and KC Venugopal, Ramesh was also appointed Chief VIP in the Rajya Sabha. It also has five MPs from the Lok Sabha by leader of the party in the house, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury. But here, too, carving of a larger group appeared to dilute the autonomy that Azad and Sharma had enjoyed till now in the Upper House.