BJP names 24 leaders to oversee states including poll-bound Haryana, Jharkhand
In Jammu and Kashmir, where elections are to be held by September, the BJP retained national general secretary Tarun Chugh as its in-charge and Ashish Sood as the co-in-charge
New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday announced the appointment of 24 members as in-charges and co-in-charges for several states, including the poll-bound Haryana and Jharkhand and the Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
Party president JP Nadda appointed former president of the Rajasthan unit, Satish Poonia, as the in-charge for Haryana and Rajya Sabha MP Surendra Nagar as the co-incharge.
The BJP’s performance in Rajasthan during the Lok Sabha polls has flagged concern in the party. The BJP, which has been in power in the state for a decade, lost five of the 10 Lok Sabha seats in the recently held polls. In the last assembly polls too, the party could only form a government with support from the Jananayak Janata Party. The two have since parted ways, and the BJP has announced it will contest polls on its own.
In Jharkhand, senior party leader and Rajya Sabha MP Laxmikant Bajpai has been given charge of the state; he was earlier the election in-charge for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. In the 2019 assembly polls, the BJP lost the election, and the Jharkhand Mukti Morch came to power. In the recent Lok Sabha polls, the party won eight of 14 seats, which was down from 11 in 2019.
The party recently appointed former Madhya Pradesh CM and now Union minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan and Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma as election in-charges (for the assembly polls) of Jharkhand.
In Jammu and Kashmir, where elections are to be held by September as per the Supreme Court’s direction, the BJP retained national general secretary Tarun Chugh as its in-charge and Ashish Sood as the co-in-charge. Union minister G Kishen Reddy will oversee the election in Jammu and Kashmir, where polls have not been held since 2018 when the assembly was dissolved following the collapse of the BJP-PDP (People’s Democratic Party) coalition government.
There is no word yet on whether the party will announce a new party president or a working president after JP Nadda was made the Union minister. Nadda continues to be president till his successor is appointed.
Member of Parliament Ajit Gopchade has been given charge of Manipur, where violence between the Kuki and the Meitie communities has emerged as a concern for the party. The government’s efforts notwithstanding, the violence in the state has continued for over a year. Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently told Parliament that normalcy is beginning to be restored in the northeastern state and cautioned that those who continue to “fan the fire” of communal violence will be “rejected” by the people of Manipur.
Lok Sabha MP from Odisha’s Puri constituency, Sambit Patra, has been retained as the coordinator of northeastern states and former Union minister V Muraleedharan as the joint coordinator.
Anil Anthony, who unsuccessfully contested the Lok Sabha polls from Kerala, has been made in-charge of Nagaland and Meghalaya.
In Bihar, where the party is in power with its ally, the Janata Dal (United), national general secretary Vinod Tawde and Rajya Sabha MP Deepak Prakash will continue to oversee the state. Bihar will go to polls in 2025. Tawde also oversaw the Lok Sabhas polls in the state.
Former Union minister Prakash Javadekar will continue in Kerala as the state in-charge and Odisha MP Aparajita Sarangi, will be the co-in-charge. Former chief minister of Gujarat Vijay Rupani has been given charge of Punjab with Punjab MLA Narendra Singh as the co-in-charge.
Former UP minister Shrikant has been given the charge of Himachal Pradesh and MLA Sanjay Tandon is the co-in-charge.
Raghunath Kulkarni has been appointed as the in-charge for Andaman and Nicobar, and Ashok Singh, a legislator from Assam, appointed as Arunachal Pradesh in-charge.
Bihar MLA Nitin Nabin as the in-charge for Chhattisgarh and national general secretary Radha Mohan Das Agarwal and MP Sudhakar Reddy will be state in-charges in Karnataka; the earlier were election in-charges in the state.
Vijay Pal Tomar has been given the charge of Odisha and Lata Usendi is the co-incharge. Nirmal Kumar Surana has been retained as the in-charge of Puducherry. Dushyant Kumar Gautam, the party’s national general secretary, will continue as the in-charge of Uttarakhand and Rekha Verma has been made co-incharge.