Fadnavis included in the party’s central election committee
@vivekbhavsar
Mumbai: As part of its strategy for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday overhauled its central parliamentary board, taking a startling decision to drop big guns Nitin Gadkari and Shivraj Singh Chouhan.
The move signifies the end of Gadkari and Singh’s primacy within the party.
The new parliamentary board members include Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home minister Amit Shah and Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh among other 11 members.
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While the party’s national president J P Nadda is president of the committee, other members include former Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa, Union minister for ports and Ayush Sarbananda Sonowal and who hails from Assam, the party’s national president of OBC Morcha K Laxman who hails from Telangana, a former IPS officer from Punjab and trusted party leader Iqbal Singh Lalpura, Dr Sudha Yadav from Haryana, Satyanarayan Jatiya and organisational secretary B L Santosh.
Dr Sudha Yadav is the only woman representative, filling in the seat which remained vacant after Sushma Swaraj’s demise.
Dr Yadav is the widow of Martyr Sukhbir Sinh Yadav who lost his life during the Kargil war.
It was Modi as the party in charge of Haryana during the 1999 Lok Sabha polls who had convinced Dr Yadav to contest the LS poll. Modi’s choice was perfect as Ms Yadav had defeated the Congress’ Indrajeet Singh with a huge margin of votes.
Satyanarayan Jatiya, who hails from Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh, has replaced CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan. MP will go to the Assembly election next year. Hence, these changes are politically significant.
Elevation of Fadnavis
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has been included in the BJP’s central election committee. It indicates his growing weight within the party, particularly after his successes in engineering a BJP win in first Bihar, then Goa and finally facilitating Eknath Shinde’s coup which toppled the tripartite MVA government.
J P Nadda announced 15 members central election committee. The list is as follows. PM Narendra Modi, Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, B S Yediyurappa, Sarbananda Sonowal, K Laxman, Iqbal Singh Lalpura, Dr Sudha Yadav, Satyanarayan Jatiya, Bhupendra Yadav, Devendra Fadnavis, Om Mathur, B L Santosh, and Mrs Vanathi Srinivasan.