Two major rejigs in a month: BJP brings in fresh faces with eye on assembly, Lok Sabha elections | India News
The organisational reshuffles and new appointments ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls are part of the BJP’s new social representation strategy and is being seen by political analysts as an attempt by the party to project itself as more inclusive.
There are 13 vice presidents, nine general secretaries, including B L Santhosh as the in-charge of the organisation, and 13 secretaries on the list.
There are no women now among the party’s nine general secretaries, though there are five women vice presidents and four women secretaries in the list of new national office-bearers.
Social representation
The new office bearers include former Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) vice-chancellor Tariq Mansoor as one of its vice presidents. The appointment of Mansoor, now a BJP MLC in Uttar Pradesh, is being seen as part of the party’s overtures to Pasmanda (backward) Muslims.
With Mansoor being inducted as a party vice president, there are two Muslims in the position now. Kerala leader Abdulla Kutty is another member from the minority community on the list.
Saroj Pandey, a Rajya Sabha MP from Chhattisgarh; and Lata Usendi, a tribal leader from Chhattisgarh, have been made vice presidents — underscoring the party’s focus on the poll-bound state where the Congress is in power.
Former UP BJP president and Rajya Sabha MP Laxmikant Bajpai is one of the two new vice presidents.
Radha Mohan Agrawal, a Rajya Sabha MP from Uttar Pradesh, is one of the two new faces on the list, which has 9 general secretaries, 7 of whom retain their position.
The new secretaries are Anil Antony, son of veteran Congress leader A K Antony; as well as Surendra Singh Nagar and Kamakhya Prasad Tasa, Rajya Sabha MPs from UP and Assam, respectively. Nagar is an influential Gurjar leader from western UP while Tasa has long been the face of tea tribes in the northeastern state.
The appointment of Bandi Sanjay Kumar as general secretary, weeks after his removal as the Telangana BJP president, is a possible signal to the party cadres that he remains valuable to the national leadership, and that his ouster was a tactical call taken in the context of political realities in the southern state, a PTI report said citing sources.
Former chief ministers Raman Singh, Vasundhara Raje, and Raghubar Das are among the seasoned leaders retained as vice presidents in the new list.
Arun Singh, Kailash Vijayvargiya, Dushyant Kumar Gautam, Tarun Chugh, Sunil Bansal, and Vinod Tawde also continue as general secretaries.
Who has been dropped
The party has dropped C T Ravi, a leader from Karnataka, and Dilip Saikia, a Lok Sabha MP from Assam, as its general secretaries.
Ravi’s omission from the list of general secretaries, who spearhead the party’s policies and agenda nationally and state-wise, unlike the vice presidents who are mostly figureheads, is being seen by some as a fallout of the BJP’s big defeat in the recent assembly polls in Karnataka.
The four-term MLA had lost his seat in a close fight in the recently held assembly polls in Karnataka.
However, a party leader said not much should be read into the dropping of several office-bearers, as many of them, including Ravi, may contest the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and will be focussing on their likely constituencies.
Vinod Sonkar, Harish Dwivedi, both Lok Sabha MPs from Uttar Pradesh, and Sunil Deodhar have been dropped as secretaries.
Dilip Ghosh, a Lok Sabha MP from West Bengal, has been dropped as a VP.
Former Union minister Radha Mohan Singh, a Lok Sabha MP from Bihar, has been dropped from the post of party vice president.
New state presidents
On July 4, the BJP had appointed new presidents for its units in four states.
G Kishan Reddy was appointed as the Telangana unit president, D Purandeshwari as Andhra Pradesh party chief, former CM Babulal Marandi as the state party president of Jharkhand, and Sunil Jakhar as the new state party president of Punjab.
The BJP also announced the appointment of Eatala Rajender as the chairman of Election Management Committee in Telangana.
The BJP aims to boost its active presence among the masses in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, and Mizoram, as these states are set to have assembly elections ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
(With inputs from agencies)
