BJP announces new central team; Raman Singh, Vasundhara Raje are among national vice presidents

BJP announces new central team; Raman Singh, Vasundhara Raje are among national vice presidents

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s national office bearers’ team was announced on Saturday, nine months after the party appointed JP Nadda as its new president.

BJP National President JP Nadda announced BJP’s new central team.(ANI)

About 60% of the team comprises new faces and there is more representation of women and OBCs.

Member of Parliament in Rajya Sabha Saroj Pandey, Ram Madhav and Murlidhar Rao have been dropped as national general secretaries. The party has included Dushyant Kumar Gautam, D Purandeswari, CT Ravi, Tarun Chugh and Dilip Saikia in the list of the national general secretaries. Dushyant Gautam was a national vice-president in the earlier team.

BL Santhosh continues to remain a national general secretary of the organisation. V Satish, Saudan Singh and Shiv Prakash continue to be the national joint secretaries.

The BJP has also announced the appointment of Rajesh Aggarwal as a treasurer of the party; the post had been vacant since 2014 after the incumbent Piyush Goyal was appointed a minister in the Narendra Modi cabinet.

Sudhir Gupta, a member of Parliament, will be the joint treasurer.

There are several additions in the list of national vice-presidents, including West Bengal leader Mukul Roy, former Jharkhand chief minister Raghubar Das, members of Parliament Rekha Verma, Annapurna Devi, Bharatiben Shiyal, DK Aruna, Radha Mohan Singh (who is also a former minister), M Chuba Ao and AP Abdullakutty. Former chief minister of Chattisgarh Raman Singh is also on the list along with former Rajasthan CM Vasundhara Raje and Jay Panda.

Senior leaders Uma Bharti, Prabhat Jha, OP Mathur, Renu Devi, Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, Avinash Rai Khanna and Shyam Jaju have been dropped from the vice-presidents’ list.

Amit Malviya is in charge of national ID and social media cells, while MP from Karnataka Tejashwi Suriya is in charge of the Yuva Morcha. Dr K Laxman from Telangana is in charge of the OBC cell while Raj Kumar Chauhan an MP from Uttar Pradesh will head the Kisan Morcha. Lal Singh Arya will head the SC Morcha while the ST Morcha head will be Samir Oaraon; Jamal Siddiqui will head the minority Morcha. Anil Baluni, Rajya Sabha MP and chief spokesperson will continue to remain in charge of media and Sanjay Myukh MLC from Bihar will be the media co-in charge.

Former minister for Information and Broadcasting Rajyavardhan Rathore, Karnataka MP Chief Chandrashekhar, Aparajita Sarangi, a former bureaucrat and MP from Odisha, Heena Gavit, an MP from Maharashtra, Guru Prakash from Bihar, and West Bengal MP Raju Bista have been included in the team of national spokespersons.

A party person aware of the details said a cabinet reshuffle is also expected and some people who have not been included in the national team could find a berth in the cabinet.