Jaitely, Rajnath new BJP general secys

Reconstituted party has more representation from backward castes and women

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which released its list of newly-appointed office bearers yesterday, seemed to have made an attempt to address the factors that led to its debacle in the recently-concluded elections.

BJP President M Venkaiah Naidu appointed former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh and General Secretary Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi as party vice-presidents and former Union ministers Rajnath Singh and Arun Jaitley general secretaries, while giving more representation to Scheduled Castes and Tribes and women.

Of the 78 members in the newly constituted National Executive, 20 are new members and it has 13 women, 11 belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

It may be recalled that in his first meeting with the press after the election debacle, former Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani had said the inability of the party to gauge the strength of the caste factor was one of the main reasons for the party's defeat.

Pramod Mahajan, who has been asked to continue as general secretary along with Arun Jaitley and Sanjay Joshi, has been put in charge of Maharashtra to ensure that the party does well in the upcoming Assembly elections in the state. 

His additional charge as secretary, the BJP parliamentary board has been given to Shivraj Singh Chauhan, who is also a general secretary, as well as a secretary in the central election committee of the party.

Prakash Javadekar, former spokesperson, has also been asked to go back to Maharashtra.  Obviously, the party wants Mahajan to redeem himself by delivering a victory in Maharashtra.

It was evident that the BJP's dismal performance in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar had a bearing on Naidu's decisions. While Kalyan was appointed one of the eight vice-presidents of the party, Rajnath Singh was appointed general secretary. Also, former Bihar unit chief Sushil Modi has been made vice-president.

The other vice-presidents include Babulal Marandi, Thawarchand Gehlot, Jaskaur Meena and Balwant Apte.

Sukumar Nambiar, who was party treasurer when Jana Krishnamurthy was president, has been brought back, replacing Ram Das Agarwal.

With many party stalwarts having lost the elections, accommodating them in the party was another task.  Former Minister for External Affairs Yashwant Sinha will be party spokesman along with Naqvi and Jaitley. Manvendra Singh, MP from Barmer, has been made additional spokesperson.

Surprisingly, Sushma Swaraj has been restricted to being a member of the parliamentary board as well as the party's central election committee. Former Union Minister Jual Oram has replaced Manmohan Samal as president of the Orissa unit.

Naidu also made changes in the frontal organisations with Dharmendra Pradhan from Orissa replacing Kishan Reddy as President of the Yuva Morcha while Karuna Shukla, niece of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, heads the Mahila Morcha.

Former Union Minister Faggan Singh Kulaste from Madhya  Pradesh heads the Scheduled Tribe Morcha while Ramnath Kovid has been retained as head of the Scheduled Caste Morcha.

Annasaheb M K Patil from Maharashtra has been appointed President of the Kisan Morcha while Tanveer Haider Usmani is the Chief of the Minorities Morcha.