New Delhi: As part of an organisational reshuffle, BJP president Nitin Nabin on Monday, August 17, appointed the party’s national office-bearers. The new team boasts a mix of new faces and old favourites.
Party sources said this was being done with an eye on Assembly elections in many states, up to 2029, and the next Lok Sabha elections.
In a major upset for Telangana, Bandi Sanjay Kumar, who was a national general secretary, has been dropped. He serves as the Union Minister of State for Home Affairs. He had earlier served as the party’s Telangana chief as well. Representing the Karimnagar Lok Sabha constituency, he is a party heavyweight who takes keen interest in state politics as well.
In Telangana, Bandi Sanjay has been in the news over the POCSO case involving his son, Bandi Sai Bhageerath. A minor’s mother filed an FIR this May, alleging that Bhageerath had sexually assaulted her daughter.
Bhageerath denied all allegations, filing a counter-complaint claiming that the girl’s family threatened him and attempted to extort Rs 5 crore from him.
Out of the total 65 names of office bearers, 51 are new. Six are below 40 years, 15 are in the 40-49 years age group, and 21 are in the 50-59 years age group. The office bearers also include 12 women and six leaders from minority communities.
The party said the new appointments ensure widespread representation, accommodating voices from 23 states and Union territories across the country.
“Such balanced appointments empower the incoming national president’s executive team to operate with a profound awareness of the nation’s vast geographical landscape and regional nuances,” the BJP said in a statement.
Better women’s representation
The new team includes prominent leaders such as Smriti Irani and Vasundhara Raje, politicians with years of experience from across the country.
Vasundhara Raje Scindia, a former chief minister of Rajasthan, has been retained as one of the national vice-presidents.
The 13 new vice-presidents comprise six women; Irani is the sole woman general secretary, and there are three women among the 16 secretaries.
Irani, who is coming back as one of the party’s general secretaries, has served in the Union Cabinet, holding multiple important portfolios.
Some old faces, some new
Manpreet Singh Badal, a Congress leader earlier, joined the BJP in 2023. The former Punjab finance minister has been appointed a national VP.
Ram Madhav, a lifelong RSS pracharak, has also made it to the national VP list. He has earlier served as a general secretary.
Union Minister Piyush Goyal has been named the national treasurer. Goyal is the only Union minister who has been brought into the party’s new team.
The BJP has retained B.L. Santhosh as National General Secretary (Organisation), a key post in the party. Likewise, Baijayant Jay Panda, Rekha Verma, and Tariq Mansoor have been retained as vice presidents.
It has also brought in ex-Tripura chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb in its team of eight national general secretaries, out of which six are new, according to the list released by the party.
Lok Sabha MP D. Purandeshwari and former Uttarakhand chief minister Tirath Singh Rawat are among the new vice presidents.
BJP MP and former president of the party’s Rajasthan unit Satish Poonia, Lok Sabha MP Gajendra Patel, Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Bhatia and ex-MP Harish Dwivedi, who is currently in charge of the party’s political affairs in Assam, are among the new faces in the list of general secretaries.
The party removed Amit Malaviya as its IT department head, replacing him with Deepak Mhaskey from Chhattisgarh.
Vinod Tawde and Sunil Bansal are the only two national general secretaries that the BJP has retained in its new team.
The two leaders have been rewarded for their impressive organisational work, party sources said, noting Bansal’s contribution in the BJP’s victory in the West Bengal Assembly polls.
Tarun Chugh, a BJP Rajya Sabha MP, has been made the party’s central office in-charge in place of Rajya Sabha MP Arun Singh.
More VPs, national general secretaries now
The number of vice presidents in the new team has been increased to 13 from 11, of which nine are new. The total number of national general secretaries has also been increased to eight from the previous seven. The new team has 16 national secretaries. There were 11 national secretaries in the previous team.
Nabin has also replaced all national morcha presidents of the party.
He has brought in many new faces, including Kavita Patidar from Madhya Pradesh, K Surendran from Kerala, Sandeep Pathak from Delhi and Manoj Tigga from West Bengal, in the team of national secretaries.
The BJP has retained party MP Anil Baluni as its national media convenor and appointed three new media co-convenors to assist him. They are Ashish Usha Agrawal, Pradeep Bhandari and Siddharth Yadav.
Former Aligarh Muslim University vice-chancellor Prof Tariq Mansoor has been appointed national vice president. Kunwar Basit Ali has been appointed president of the Minority Morcha.
Anil Antony, the son of Congress veteran A K Antony, has been retained as a national secretary.
