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Mumbai: Almost nine months after having taken charge as Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) 11th national president, J P Nadda has reconstituted the 69 member party’s national executive, surprisingly with state party discards and has brought some who were on the sidelines for quite some-time back in the national limelight.
At least three former chief minister’s – Dr Raman Singh (Chhattisgarh), Vasundhara Raje Scindia (Rajasthan) and Raghubar Das (Jharkhand) find place as national vice president’s. All the three lost the assembly elections in their respective states.
Sources in the party disclosed that while it was expected that Dr Raman Singh was certain to be drafted for national party duty, former Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis was not considered for national duty. However, his bete-noire’s in Maharashtra – Vinod Tawde and Pankaja Munde have been drafted for national duty as party secretaries.
Another significant induction in the partys national executive is former Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje Scindia. Sources in the BJP disclosed that after having thwarted Sachin Pilot’s rebellion and bid to topple the Congress government in Rajasthan, the party needed her to be shifted to national politics and reorganize the party in Rajasthan. Scindia had been extremely unpopular as the chief minister, alienating herself from the party cadres with her rather aristocratic style of functioning, which is why many in the BJP felt was one of the reason for the party losing sate like Rajasthan.
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Induction of Mukul Roy, former Trinamool Congress leader and once right hand man of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has also raised quite a few eyebrows. His elevation comes at a time with assembly elections in West Bengal are just a year away. He was founder member of the TMC and has been under as his name has allegedly figured in the Sharada chit fund scam.
There are seven office bearers who hail from Maharashtra, including – V Satish, Joint Secretary Organisation who has been retained. While, Vinod Tawde, Sunil Deodhar, Pankaja Munde and Vijaya Rahatkar have been inducted as partys national Secretary’s. Jamal Siddique from Maharashtra has been appointed as partys national minority morcha.
Nadda has replaced Poonam Mahajan-Rao as BJP Yuva Morcha national president with party Lok Sabha MP from Karnataka Tejasvi Surya. It is an interesting cross-over, with Poonam Mahajan-Rao exiting the national team and her estranged cousin Pankaja Munde making entry into the national team as party secretary.
They both are daughters of late BJP stalwarts from Maharashtra – Pramod Mahajan and Gopinath Munde. However, with the untimely demise of both their fathers, family ties have been under strain and in a cold storage of sorts for now.
After her stunning upset defeat in the 2019 assembly elections at the hands of her estranged cousin brother Dhananjay Munde, she had begun to raise the banner of revolt against the partys state leadership. She was then assured of honorable rehabilitation within the party at the national level.
Lok Sabha MP from Nandurbar Dr Heena Gavit is the new face in the list of 23 national party spokespersons.
Despite internal resentment against partys Information Technology (IT) Cell head, Amit Malviya, he has been retained by Nadda. Sources argue that the partys once famed IT cell is now unable to counter trolling from the opposition as the IT cell is full of office bearers whose IT knowledge is a suspect.
After having been left out in the political wilderness for quite some time now former union ministers from Bihar – Sayed Shahanawaz Hussain and Rajeev Pratap Rudy are once again back in the national limelight as party spokespersons. Besides them, Advocate Nalin Kohli too has been brought back as party spokesperson along with former Olympian and ex-union minister Rajvardhan Rathore. Other notable inductees as panel national spokespersons include – Rajeev Chandrashekhar, Nupur Sharma and Sanju Verma.
