NEW DELHI: The BJP on Saturday rejigged its team of Central office-bearers ahead of the upcoming Assembly elections and the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, appointing Pasmanda Muslim and former Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) vice-chancellor Tariq Mansoor from Uttar Pradesh as one of its 13 national vice presidents. In another significant move, BJP president J P Nadda appointed the former Telangana unit chief Bandi Sanjay as a national general secretary.
According to an official statement, Saroj Pandey (Member of Parliament from Chhattisgarh) and Laxmikant Bajpai (MP from Uttar Pradesh) would be the new vice president along with Mansoor.
With the party focusing on a mega outreach to the tribal communities, it has elevated Lata Usendi, too, to the post of vice president. She is an influential tribal leader from Chhattisgarh.
Sanjay and Radha Mohan Agrawal (MP from UP) were appointed national general secretary while Surendra Singh Nagar (MP from UP), Kamakhya Prasad Tasa (MP from Assam) and Anil Antony (son of former defence minister A K Anthony) were accommodated as national secretaries.
Surendra Singh Nagar is an influential Gujjar leader from western UP and Tasa has a strong influence among the tea tribes of Assam.
With the induction of Mansoor, the party now has two Muslim faces among vice presidents, with Abdulla Kutty from Kerala being the other one.
Eight of the current office bearers have been dropped. They include C T Ravi, Dilip Saikia, Radha Mohan Singh, Dilip Ghosh, Sunil Deodhar, Harish Dwivedi, Vinod Sonkar, and Bharti Siyal. Ravi and Saika were general secretaries while the rest were secretaries.
Ravi’s dropping from the list of the party’s general secretaries is being seen as the fallout of the BJP’s humiliating defeat in the Karnataka Assembly election. He had lost his seat in the recently-held Assembly polls. However, some party sources hinted that Ravi will contest the Lok Sabha elections. The induction of Sanjay is an indication to the party’s cadre that he still is an important leader for the party.
The party has retained former chief ministers Raman Singh, Vasundhara Raje and Raghubar Das as its other vice presidents.
Likewise, Arun Singh, Kailash Vijayvargiya, Dushyant Kumar Gautam, Tarun Chugh, Sunil Bansal and Vinod Tawde will stay on as general secretaries.
13 VICE PRESIDENTS, NINE GENERAL SECRETARIES
With the latest appointments, there are now 13 vice presidents, nine general secretaries, including B L Santhosh as the in-charge of the organisation, and 13 secretaries with less than a year left for the Lok Sabha polls. However, there are no women now among the party’s nine general secretaries, though there are five women vice presidents and four women secretaries in the list of new national office-bearers