Tejaswi Surya appointed new chief of party’s Yuva Morcha; Mukul Roy made national vice president.
New Delhi: BJP national president Jagat Prakash Nadda, while announcing his team of national office bearers, has chosen to retain a few and drop some from the existing position holders. Nadda was appointed the party president on 20 January.
Out of the total 70 team members, 8 are from the Southern states, 5 from Bihar,11 from Uttar Pradesh, 8 from Delhi, 6 from Maharashtra, 4 each from Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, 2 from Chhattisgarh, 3 from Jharkhand, 2 from Nagaland and 1 from Gujarat among others. No one from Himachal Pradesh, the political home state of Nadda has found a place in the team.
Among the notable and few omissions that have been effected by Nadda include Prabhat Jha and Vinay Sahasrabuddhe who were national vice presidents earlier. The other vice presidents who have been dropped include Uma Bharti, O.P. Mathur, Renu Devi, Avinash Rai Khanna and Shyam Jaju. Jha is likely to get a gubernatorial post.
Similarly, Ram Madhav, Murlidhar Rao, Saroj Pandey and Anil Jain, who were working as general secretary in the party, have been replaced with Dushyant Kumar Gautam, D. Purandeshwari, C.T. Ravi and Tarun Chugh. As per party leaders, some of those who have been removed from their posts maybe inducted into the Cabinet. Madhav was made the general secretary in August 2014 and was also the in-charge of Jammu and Kashmir earlier. Pandey is the in-charge of Maharashtra.
Union Minister Piyush Goyal, who was the treasurer of the party, has been replaced with Rajesh Agarwal, who was Finance Minister in the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh. He will be assisted by Sudhir Gupta, the party Lok Sabha member from Mandsaur, Madhya Pradesh. Former Union Minister Radha Mohan Singh, who had not joined the Union Cabinet due to his age, has been appointed as one of the 12 national vice presidents. Former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh and former Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, who were appointed as national vice presidents in January 2019, have been retained.
High profile party leader Varun Gandhi could not find a place in the team after being dropped as general secretary of the party by Amit Shah in August 2014. Also missing from the list is former Mahasrastra CM Devendra Fadnavis.
Keeping next year’s West Bengal elections in mind, the party has appointed Mukul Roy, who was upset for his alleged neglect by the party, as a national vice president. Others who have found place from the state include Anupam Hazra, who has been appointed as national secretary and Darjeeling MP, Raju Bista who has been made one of the 23 national spokespersons. A young party face from Bihar, Guru Prakash along with Sambit Patra, Sudhanshu Trivedi, Syed Shahnawaz Hussain, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Nalin Kohli, Rajiv Chandrashekar, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore will lead the party’s stand in the media. Anil Baluni has been made the media in-charge, while Sanjay Mayukh has been made the co-incharge.
First-time Lok Sabha MP Tejaswi Surya has been appointed the new president of the party’s Yuva Morcha, replacing Poonam Mahajan, while K. Laxman has been given the responsibility to lead the BJP’s OBC Morcha and Jamal Siddiqui, who is the president of the party’s Maharashtra minority morcha will now head the National Minorities Morcha. The party’s SC Morcha will be led by Lal Singh Arya, with the ST Morcha being led by Samir Oraon, who is a Rajya Sabha member from Jharkhand.
All the three national joint general secretaries, V. Satish, Saudan Singh and Shivprakash, who were appointed by Amit Shah, were asked to continue in the same position. Similar is the case with national IT and social media head, Amit Malviya, who, too, stays in his post despite some senior leaders of the party pushing for his removal.