BJP MP unit: Few women on board, many heavyweights shown door
BJP Madhya Pradesh unit president Nandkumar Singh Chauhan announced his new team on Sunday by showing door to many heavyweight leaders and giving one of the top posts to an RSS worker. Chauhan, apparently, did not follow the party’s guideline to give 33% representation to women.
BJP Madhya Pradesh unit president Nandkumar Singh Chauhan announced his new team on Sunday by showing door to many heavyweight leaders and giving one of the top posts to an RSS worker. Chauhan, apparently, did not follow the party’s guideline to give 33% representation to women.
The BJP’s national council had approved an amendment in the party constitution to give women workers 33% reservation on the party positions right from mandal-level to national-level.
BJP state unit presidents, including Chauhan, followed the guidelines till his previous term. In the outgoing team of 27 members, there were 9 woman office-bearers. On Sunday, only five women workers were named as office bearers in the 27-member team. Also, none was considered worthy for the post of general secretary.
Ranjana Baghel and Usha Thakur were named as vice-presidents while Sampattia Uike, Krishna Gaur and Kavita Patidar were given the post of secretary.
BJP spokesman Hitesh Bajpai told HT, “The party tried to give adequate representation to women.”
Senior party leader Sarita Deshpande told HT, “They may amend the list further to include more women in it. Also, names of the executive committee members are yet to be announced.”
The BJP state unit president showed door to many heavyweights like Vijendra Singh Sisodia, Rakesh Singh, Raghunandan Sharma, Ganesh Singh, Madan Mohan Gupta, Manoranjan Mishra and Chetnya Kashyap.
Chauhan, however, accommodated those leaders, who were aspirants for ministerial berths during expansion of the Shivraj Singh Chouhan cabinet on June 30. They include Ranjna Baghel, Usha Thakur, Ramlal Rautel, Pradeep Laria and Sudarshan Gupta.
Vice-presidents in the outgoing team Vijesh Lunawat and Usha Thakur retained their position.
Inclusion of RSS worker Vishnu Dutt Sharma as a general secretary means BJP’s ideological mentor is tightening its grip over the party organisation, feel political analysts. A section of party leaders, however, say the move may cause resentment.
Lokendra Parashar will replace Hitesh Bajpai as the media-in charge of the party’s state unit. He is assisted by four joint media in-charge - Sanjay Khoche, Udai Agrawal, Rajneesh Agrawal and Sarvesh Tiwari.
All the four were contenders for the post of media in-charge and their appointment as joint media in-charge may further fuel resentment, the analysts say.
Rajendra Singh was made the office-secretary while the battery of party spokespersons will be led by Bhopal MP Alok Sanjar.
The average age of the party office-bearers has considerably come down as Chauhan had announced that he would follow the party guidelines of not accommodating leaders above 75 years of age.