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With eye on 2024 elections, BJP appoints new state in-charges
The party has begun aggressive preparations for the general elections and held a meeting in the national capital this week to draw a blueprint for strengthening its position in 144 Lok Sabha constituencies where its performance was found wanting in the previous general elections.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday announced names of in-charges who will have the mandate to oversee electioneering in over a dozen states, with an eye also on the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
The party has begun aggressive preparations for the general elections and held a meeting in the national capital this week to draw a blueprint for strengthening its position in 144 Lok Sabha constituencies where its performance was found wanting in the previous general elections. The party has also appointed a three-member panel to redouble efforts in 73,000 booths across the country to improve its position in the 2024 general elections.
National general secretary Vinod Tawde has been given charge of Bihar where the party has begun preparations on a war footing for the Lok Sabha polls and the 2025 state elections after its alliance with the Janta Dal United came undone. Tawde, who is replacing Union minister Bhupender Yadav as the state in-charge will be assisted by MP Harish Dwivedi. The party recently set a target of winning over 35 seats in the Lok Sabha polls from the state.
Two other national general secretaries, D Purandeswari and Kailash Vijayvarghia, will cease to be in-charge of Chhattisgarh and West Bengal respectively.
Purandehwari is being replaced by Om Mathur, a senior party leader from Rajasthan who was recently nominated to the central election committee of the party. He will be assisted by Bihar MLA Nitin Nabeen. The party is aiming to wrest the state back from the Congress in the 2023 polls and recently began a series of campaigns in Chhattisgarh to mark the beginning of its preparations.
In West Bengal where the party has emerged as the principal opposition to the ruling TMC, the BJP has given charge to former Bihar minister Mangal Pandey. The BJP won 77 seats in the 2021 West Bengal elections, and has kept up the pressure on the TMC government, accusing it of unleashing political violence against its cadres and recently of fostering corruption, after senior minister, Partha Chatterjee was arrested for his alleged involvement in the West Bengal school service commission recruitment scam. Pandey will be assisted by Amit Malviya who heads the IT cell of the BJP and Asha Lakra, the mayor of Ranchi.
Sunil Bansal who was recently appointed as a national general secretary will also be overseeing West Bengal apart from Odisha and Telangana.
“He will be overall incharge, like a kshetriya sangathan mantri responsible for three states. This is an old practice followed in the BJP where sangathan mantris from the RSS who are given part positions are given more than one state to oversee as in-charges. Earlier, Saudan Singh who also came to the party from the RSS had the responsibility of overseeing work in Bihar as well as Chhattisgarh,” said a party functionary.
In Telangana where the party has set its sights on ousting the TRS government from the state, the party has retained national general secretary Tarun Chugh as in-charge. He will be assisted by Arvind Menon, who was the co-incharge in West Bengal.
The party has also retained P Murlidhar Rao, a former national general secretary in Madhya Pradesh and national general secretary Arun Singh in Rajasthan as state in-charges. Singh, also oversees electioneering work in poll-bound Karnataka.
UP lawmaker Ram Shankar Katheria will be the co-incharge in MP along with national secretary Pankaja Munde, who has also been retained in the position. Vijaya Rahatkar, national secretary will be the co-incharges in Rajasthan.
Former Union minister Prakash Javadekar has been given charge of Kerala; he will be assisted by Radha Mohan Agarwal, a Rajya Sabha MP. Agarwal replaces Abdullah Kutty as the incharge of Lakshadweep.
National spokesperson Sambit Patra, who was in charge of Manipur earlier, will now be responsible for overseeing election-related work in all the north-eastern states; he will be assisted by Rituraj Sinha, the party’s national secretary.
Two former chief ministers have also been given charge of states. While former Tripura CM Biplab Deb will be in charge of Haryana, former Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani will oversee election-related work in Punjab and Chandigarh. Virender Singh Raina, a former party vice-president from Punjab, will assist Rupani.
According to a second party functionary, the former chief ministers and former Union ministers have been given the mandate of state in-charges since they did not have any organisational responsibilities but are well versed in organisational work and are familiar with election preparations.
Former Union minister Mahesh Sharma will be overseeing work in Tripura in place of Vinod Sonkar who has been given charge of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. Sonkar is a lawmaker from Uttar Pradesh. In Jharkhand, which goes to the polls in 2024, the party has appointed Rajya Sabha MP Laxmikant Bajpai as in-charge.
