New Delhi: Union Minister Piyush Goyal is the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) treasurer under Nitin Nabin’s new national team, while former Union Minister Smriti Irani, former Tripura chief minister Biplab Deb are among the national general secretaries.
IT cell chief Amit Malviya has been stripped of his responsibility, a decision coming in the backdrop of the Gen Z protests. The IT cell has been replaced with a social media department, with Deepak Mhaskey from Chhattisgarh its convenor.
Ram Madhav returns as a national vice-president of the party. B.L.Santhosh continues as the general secretary, organisation.
Madhav, a former national general secretary of the BJP, is currently a member of the national executive of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). He had played a crucial role in the party’s organisational and political outreach in Jammu and Kashmir and the Northeast.
Apart from Biplab Deb and Irani, the list of eight general secretaries include Rajya Sabha MP Satish Poonia, Lok Sabha MP Gajendra Patel, former member of the Lok Sabha Harish Dwivedi, and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Bhatia.
Rajya Sabha MP Vinod Tawde and senior leader Sunil Bansal were retained as national general secretaries.
In its latest list of vice-presidents, the party has included former Uttarakhand CM and Lok Sabha member Tirath Singh Rawat among others, while former Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and Baijayant Panda have managed to be part of it. Apart from them, the list also includes Rekha Verma, Lal Singh Arya and Tariq Mansoor.
The party appointed two national joint general secretaries (organisation), Shivprakash and Saudan Singh. Shivprakash was in the previous team too, while Saudan Singh was earlier a party vice-president.
Former AAP strategist Sandeep Pathak and former Congress leader Anil Antony made it to the list of 16 national secretaries.
The party gave significant representation to women, with Rajya Sabha MP Phangnon Konyak, Sangeeta Yadav and Kavita Patidar becoming national secretaries.
Several leaders from Uttar Pradesh, including Harish Dwivedi, have found place in the new team. Nabin himself became the party’s national president in January.
According to BJP and Sangh insiders, several rounds of meetings took place between the BJP central leadership and the RSS to ensure the new team reflects a ‘younger team’ which can work in tandem with the national president.
Lok Sabha MP Tejasvi Surya was dropped as Yuva Morcha chief and replaced with Hemang Joshi from Gujarat. For Mahila Morcha, the responsibility went to Roop Kumari Choudhary who hails from Chhattisgarh, replacing Vanathi Srinivasan.
The new OBC morcha head is Amarpal Maurya from Uttar Pradesh, replacing Rajya Sabha MP K. Laxman.
For the minority morcha, the party gave charge to Kunwar Basit Ali from Uttar Pradesh in place of Jamal Siddiqui.
“A number of women have been given responsibility in the latest list and out of 65 national office bearers 12 are women. We will see in the coming few days that they will also be given representation in states,” said a senior BJP leader. In the previous team, there were only five women in the national team.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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