New Delhi, Aug. 17 -- New Delhi, August 17
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday announced its new team of national office-bearers, bringing in a large number of new faces while retaining several experienced leaders in key organisational positions. The much-awaited reshuffle comes seven months after Nitin Nabin took over as the party's 12th national president.
Three former chief ministers, 18 MPs and 12 women are among the 65 office-bearers in the BJP's new national team, signalling a broad mix of political experience, parliamentary representation and organisational strength as the party looks ahead to the 2029 Lok Sabha elections. The new line-up includes several veterans in key positions alongside a large number of younger and first-time office-bearers, with 51 of the 65 appointments being new. The team also draws leaders from 23 states and Union territories, giving the organisation a wider regional footprint as the BJP prepares for the electoral challenges ahead.
Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal has been appointed national treasurer, a post he held from 2010 to 2014. His father, Ved Prakash Goyal, who served as a Union minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, had also held the post for a long period. Goyal is the only Union minister inducted into the new organisational team.
Former Union minister Smriti Irani has returned to the party's central structure as a national general secretary. Former RSS functionary Ram Madhav has also made a comeback as a national vice-president.
The BJP retained B L Santhosh as national general secretary (organisation), while Vinod Tawde and Sunil Bansal are the only two national general secretaries retained from the previous team. Bansal had played a key organisational role in Uttar Pradesh and was also involved in the party's campaign in the West Bengal Assembly polls.
Former Tripura chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb has been inducted as one of the party's eight national general secretaries. BJP MP and former Rajasthan unit president Satish Poonia, Lok Sabha MP Gajendra Patel, Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Bhatia and former MP Harish Dwivedi are among the other new faces in the general secretaries' team.
The number of national vice-presidents has been increased to 13 from 11, with nine new faces. Former Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje Scindia, Baijayant Panda, Rekha Verma and Tariq Mansoor have been retained. Lok Sabha MP D Purandeshwari and former Uttarakhand chief minister Tirath Singh Rawat are among those appointed to the post.
Former Aligarh Muslim University vice-chancellor Tariq Mansoor has been retained as a vice-president, while former Punjab finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal has also been appointed to the post. Other new vice-presidents include Varshaben Narendrabhai Doshi, Bharti Pravin Pawar, Sardar Manpreet Singh Badal, Lal Singh Arya, M Nagaraja and Madhuchandra Kar.
The BJP has 16 national secretaries in its new team, compared with 11 earlier. Fourteen of the 16 are new faces, including Kavita Patidar, K Surendran, Sandeep Pathak, Manoj Tigga, Bhola Singh, Pradip Varma, Jagdish Ishwarbhai Patel, Phangnon Konyak, Sangeeta Yadav, M Venkateshan, Siddharth Shambhu, Swadesh Singh, Mriganka Deo Barman, Rohan Gupta and Jai Prakash.
Anil Antony, son of Congress veteran A K Antony, has been retained as a national secretary.
Anil Baluni, the Lok Sabha MP from Uttarakhand, has been retained as the party's media in-charge. He will be assisted by three new media co-convenors, Ashish Usha Agrawal, Pradeep Bhandari and Siddharth Yadav. Priti Gandhi, Shivanand Dwivedi, Alok Bhatt and Arun Yadav have been appointed social media co-convenors.
The party has removed Amit Malaviya as head of its IT department and appointed Deepak Mhaskey from Chhattisgarh in his place. Tarun Chugh, a BJP Rajya Sabha MP, has been appointed central office in-charge, replacing Rajya Sabha MP Arun Singh.
The party has also replaced all its national morcha presidents, with Nabin stressing the importance of the BJP's frontal organisations. Hemang Joshi from Gujarat has been appointed Yuva Morcha president, replacing BJP MP Tejasvi Surya. Roop Kumari Choudhary from Chhattisgarh will head Mahila Morcha, replacing Vanathi Srinivasan, while Amarpal Maurya from Uttar Pradesh has been appointed OBC Morcha president in place of Rajya Sabha MP K Laxman.
Bansilal Gurjar from Madhya Pradesh has been appointed Kisan Morcha president, Shivesh Kumar Ram from Bihar will head SC Morcha, and Mannalal Rawat from Rajasthan has been named ST Morcha president. Kunwar Basit Ali from Uttar Pradesh has been appointed Minority Morcha president.
Of the 65 office-bearers announced on Monday, 51 are new. Six are below 40 years, 15 are aged between 40 and 49, and 21 fall in the 50-59 age group. The team includes 12 women and six leaders from minority communities, party sources said.
The BJP said the appointments provide representation from 23 states and Union territories and were made with the party's electoral preparations through 2029 in mind.
"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.
The party also said the North-East had been given special attention, with three regional leaders from Tripura, Assam and Nagaland inducted into the national structure. The dedicated North-East Coordination Cell will continue to be headed by BJP MP Sambit Patra, who has also been retained as the party's north-east coordinator.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated the newly appointed office-bearers in a post on X.
"Congratulations to the newly appointed National Office Bearers of the BJP and those who have been given various responsibilities in the party. This newly appointed team brings together organisational experience, energy and grassroots connection. I am confident they will give their best in strengthening our party and focusing on public service. My best wishes to them," Modi said.
Goyal's appointment as national treasurer has also triggered speculation that he could be dropped from the Union Cabinet in a possible reshuffle, in line with the BJP's practice of "one person, one post" during the Modi-Amit Shah era.
The new organisational team, which combines experienced leaders with a large cohort of younger and first-time office-bearers, comes as the BJP prepares for a series of Assembly elections and the 2029 Lok Sabha polls.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.