New Delhi: On Saturday, the BJP carried out a major reorganization of the party’s positions with the aim of giving it a less North Indian look. This brings up several new faces, but also the omission of some from the south who had a reputation for having a mind of their own.
The highlights of the new roster are the replacement of several general secretaries, including Ram Madhav, P Muralidhar Rao, and Anil Jain.
The other major move, again relevant to the South, is the appointment of Tejasvi Surya, lately the blue-eyed boy from the propaganda arm of the BJP, as chairman of the party’s youth wing.
A third significant change is the inclusion of West Bengal leader Mukul Roy and Maharashtra’s Vinod Tawade and Pankaja Munde in a team that used to be seen far north in India.
Mukul Roy has been appointed vice president of the party, and Tawade and Munde are now secretaries.
Along with Ram Madhav and Muralidhar Rao, another leader who lost his prominence is Uma Bharti, never a favorite of the Modi-led dispensation. They have left her as vice president. Other casualties are Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, Prabhat Jha, Om Prakash Mathur, and Shyam Jaju and Saroj Pandey.
There are now five new general secretaries out of the total of eight: Dushyant Kumar Gautam is the Dalit; NT Rama Rao’s daughter, D Purandareshwari, has been recruited into the team to steal a political space occupied by the TDP in Andhra Pradesh. Karnataka’s CT Ravi has been hired to balance a match dominated by BS Yediyurappa; and Tarun Chugh in Punjab is tasked with preserving the alliance with Akali Dal, who is now in a bad mood over farm bills.
Only Bhupender Yadav, Kailash Vijayvargiya and Arun Singh have retained their post as general secretaries. They occupy a critical position in the organization, as they are often in charge of the states and serve as a liaison between regional and central leaders.
After the list was revealed, sources turned around that the BJP leadership has opted for a horse-by-course policy, meaning the new team is destined to pursue new goals.
The spinmeisters said that those who have been eliminated should not be judged negatively. However, some may have been scrapped for reasons such as their habit of making remarks that have repeatedly irritated leadership and non-compliance, they added.
A curiosity amid these changes is the number of national spokespersons. Now there are 23, with Deputy Anil Baluni as head. The new spokies include Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, Rajiv Chandrashekhar, Tom Vadakkan and Guru Prakash, a Dalit.
The fact that Amit Malviya remains in charge of the party’s IT wing means that the BJP’s fervor for propaganda remains intact despite the fact that Subramanian Swamy is waging an acid campaign against Malviya.
The party has not filled the vacancies on its parliamentary board, its highest decision-making body. There are also some vacancies in other positions.
It is also said that a cabinet shakeup must take place, but that is the exclusive domain of Modi. No spinmeister can speak for the PM.
The number of women on the list of national office holders has risen from eight previously to 13.
The BJP also appointed Rajesh Agarwal as its new treasurer and brought in new faces as heads of its different morchas, with K Laxman, Rajkumar Chahar, Lal Singh Arya, Samir Oraon and Jamal Siddiqui named president of OBC, SC, ST and minority morcha respectively. . .
However, he has not announced the head of his female wing.
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