As expected, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi returned to the BJP Parliamentary Board after a gap of six years. He will also have a say in party’s central election committee. Modi also managed to get the General Secretary post for controversial leader and his close aide Amit Shah, who was the Home Minister of Gujarat when the 2002 riots took place.
BJP also rewarded Varun Gandhi with the post of General Secretary, while Uma Bharti was made Vice President. BJP President Rajnath Singh announced a core team, keeping an eye on 2014 polls. They included 12 Vice Presidents, 10 General Secretaries, 15 Secretaries, 7 Spokespersons, 12-member Central Parliamentary Board, 19-member of Central Election Committee and five-member Central Disciplinary Committee.
Surprisingly, senior leaders Yashwant Sinha, Jaswant Singh, Najma Heptulla and Shanta Kumar failed to find the favour of Rajnath Singh. Ravi Shankar Prasad was also dropped as the Chief Spokesperson of the party.
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Rajya Sabha MP Smriti Irani was made the Vice President, while former Karnataka CM Sadananda Gowda was also offered the same post. Rajiv Pratap Rudy has been promoted as the General Secretary. Saroj Pandey has been named as the new President of BJP’s Women Wing, while Anurag Thakur retained the post od BJP Yuva Morcha President.
Prakash Javedkar, Shahnawaz Hussain, Nirmala Sitharaman, Vijay Sonkar Shastri, Sudhanshu Trivedi, Meenakshi Lekhi and Capt. Abhimanyu will be the spokespersons of the party. Late Pramod Mahajan’s daughter Poonam Mahajan was made a Secretary. Former Union Minister Juel Oram (Odisha) was made the Vice President. Dharmendra Pradhan retained the General Secretary post. SS Ahluwalia was also made a Vice President. Ananth Kumar was made a General Secretary.
Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, C.P. Thakur, Balbir Punj, Satpal Malik, Prabhat Jha, Bijyo Chakravarti and Kiran Maheshwari will be the Vice Presidents. Gopinath Munde, Jual Oram, Shahnawaz Hussain, Vinay Katiyar, J.P. Nadda and Dr. Harshwardhan are part of BJP’s Central Election Committee. Rajya Sabha MP Piyush Goyal will continue to be the Treasurer.
The BJP’s Cenrtral Parliamentary Board includes Rajnath Singh, Atal Behari Vajpayee, L.K. Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, M. Venkaiah Naidu, Nitin Gadkari, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, Narendra Modi, Ananth Kumar, Thawar Chand Gehlot and Ram Lal.