New Delhi: The BJP on Saturday announced the long-awaited list of its national office-bearers as the party effected a major reshuffle in key organisational positions, gave the team a more pan-India look and brought in new faces, including some seen to be strongly associated with its core ideology.
The highlights of the new list are replacement of several general secretaries, including Ram Madhav, P Muralidhar Rao and Anil Jain, with new faces, appointment of Tejasvi Surya, an articulate and fiery advocate of the Hindutva plank, as the party’s youth wing president, and giving place to West Bengal leader Mukul Roy, and Vinod Tawade and Pankaja Munde of Maharashtra in the team.
Roy has been made a vice president, and the two Maharashtra leaders secretaries. There had been reports that all three of them were miffed with their respective state leadership. Surya replaces Poonam Mahajan.
Uma Bharti has been dropped as vice president along with MP Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, Prabhat Jha, Om Prakash Mathur and Shyam Jaju among others, while Saroj Pandey has been dropped as general secretary.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi greeted the new team of office-bearers and expressed confidence that they will uphold the “glorious tradition” of the party of serving the people of India selflessly and with dedication.
There are five new general secretaries among the total eight: Dalit leader Dushyant Kumar Gautam, D Purandareshwari of Andhra Pradesh, C T Ravi of Karnataka, Tarun Chugh of Punjab, a state where the BJP’s ties with ally Akali Dal have nosedived over farm bills, and Dilip Saikia from Assam. Bhupender Yadav, Kailash Vijayvargiya and Arun Singh have retained their position as general secretaries. Sources said the BJP leadership has chosen to go with leaders who are fit for their role and are seen to be reflective of the party’s ideology. (PTI)