NEW DELHI: After almost three months of his appointment, Delhi BJP chief Adesh Kumar Gupta on Friday named new party presidents for 14 district units. There are 12 new names while two district presidents, Ram Kishore Sharma from Shahdara and Rohtash Bidhuri from South Delhi, were repeated. The leaders, aware of the development, said Gupta has tried to strike a balance by accommodating names recommended by party MPs.
However, there was no representation of Dalit, minorities, and women in the list. A senior state leader said ‘choices’ of former Delhi BJP chief and northeast Delhi MP Manoj Tiwari were completely ignored. “Gupta has tried to appease every MP except Manoj Tiwari. He has accommodated at least one name each recommended by all of them but Tiwari.
The charge of two districts of Chandni Chowk Lok Sabha have been given to leaders suggested by the MP Dr Harsh Vardhan,” he said. The state unit of BJP is divided into 14 districts for smooth functioning. Each district comprises five assembly constituencies and 20 municipal wards.
The district presidents are—Rajkumar Bhatia (Keshav Puram), Vikesh Sethi (Chandni Chowk), Mohan Goyal (Northeast), Master Vinod (Navin Shahdara), Vinod Bachheti (Mayur Vihar), Ram Kishore Sharma (Shahdara), Rajesh Goel (Karol Bagh), Devendra Solanki (Northwe s t ) , Prashant Sharma (New Delhi), Bajrang Shukla (outer), Sachin Bhasin (west), Vijay Solanki (Najafgarh), Jagmohan Mehlawat (Mehrauli), and Rohtash Bihduri (South Delhi).
Gupta has earlier announced the names of 250 Mandal (block) presidents. Delhi BJP Media Cell head Ashok Goel said the presidents were appointed after extensive consultation and feedback process. The state leadership has launched massive feedback exercise to pick the names of the office bearers. Gupta has appointed 48 observers who interacted with the incumbent district presidents, former and present block presidents, councillors, former councillors, the MLA and the MP belonging to the block. This has happened for the first time.