PATNA: Senior BJP leader Dilip Kumar Jaiswal has been appointed as the new president of the party's Bihar unit replacing Samrat Choudhary who served as state chief of the party for nearly 16 months.
Jaiswal is from the OBC Vaishya community and may help consolidate its members behind the BJP ahead of the Bihar Assembly polls next year. The state revenue and land reforms minister, he has been picked for the top party post in the state by the BJP high command in view of his vast experience in the party’s organisation. Jaiswal, a native of Khagaria district in north Bihar, is considered close to Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
A third-term member of the Bihar Legislative Council, he is also in charge of the Sikkim BJP and has been the party's treasurer for the past two decades in Bihar.
He is considered a key party organiser in the Kishanganj and Seemanchal regions of the state. Jaiswal thanked the central leadership of the party for reposing faith in him and said that he would meet the expectations of the party’s top brass.
Deputy chief minister Samrat Choudhary was holding the post of BJP chief in the state so far. It was expected that Choudhary, a Kushwaha leader, would be relieved of the post of state party president ever since he was given the number two position in the new Nitish government formed in January this year.
The BJP had appointed Choudhary to the post with the hope of consolidating the votes of the “Luv-Kush” -- Kurmi-Kushwaha (Koeri) castes. Both castes constitute nearly 10% of the state’s population.
In the recent Lok Sabha polls, the NDA gave tickets to seven Kushwaha candidates, but the alliance lost Buxar, Sasaram, Karakat and Aurangabad, all seats with huge Kushwaha votes.