BJP rejig: Eye on polls, Nadda inducts former AMU VC Mansoor, Anil Antony; drops Ravi

While rijigging its central team, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president JP Nadda on Saturday (July 29) brought in a Pasmanda Muslim from Uttar Pradesh as one of its vice presidents and former Telangana unit chief Bandi Sanjay Kumar as a national general secretary among its office-bearers.

The BJP chief has dropped general secretaries CT Ravi, a leader from Karnataka, and Dilip Saikia, a Lok Sabha MP from Assam, from the central team. He has also dropped secretaries Vinod Sonkar and Harish Dwivedi, both Lok Sabha MPs from Uttar Pradesh, and Sunil Deodhar.

Radha Mohan Agrawal, a Rajya Sabha MP from Uttar Pradesh, is one of the two new faces in the list of new office-bearers, which has nine general secretaries, seven of whom retain their position.

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Ex-minister dropped

The new secretaries are Anil Antony, son of veteran Congress leader AK Antony, and Surendra Singh Nagar and Kamakhya Prasad Tasa, Rajya Sabha MP from UP and Assam, respectively. Nagar is an influential Gujjar leader from western UP while Tasa has long been the face of tea tribes in the northeastern state.

There are 13 vice presidents, nine general secretaries, including BL Santhosh as in-charge of the organisation, and 13 secretaries on the list.

Former Union minister Radha Mohan Singh, a Lok Sabha MP from Bihar, has been dropped from the post of party vice-president. Former Uttar Pradesh BJP president and Rajya Sabha MP Laxmikant Bajpai is one of the two new vice-presidents.

With Tariq Mansoor being inducted as a party vice-president, there are two Muslims in the position now. Kerala leader Abdulla Kutty is another member from the minority community on the list.

The appointment of former Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) vice-chancellor Mansoor, now a BJP MLC in Uttar Pradesh, is being seen to be part of the party’s overtures to Pasmanda (backward) Muslims.

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Bandi Sanjay makes the cut

Ravi’s omission from the list of general secretaries, who spearhead the party’s policies and agenda nationally and state-wise, unlike the vice-presidents who are mostly figureheads, is being seen by some as a fallout of the BJP’s big defeat in the recent assembly polls in Karnataka. The four-term MLA had lost his seat in a close fight in the recently held assembly polls in Karnataka.

However, a party leader said not much should be read into the dropping of several office-bearers, as many of them, including Ravi, may contest the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and will be focusing on their likely constituencies.

The appointment of Sanjay Kumar weeks after his removal as the Telangana BJP president is a signal to the party cadres that he remains valuable to the national leadership and that his ouster was a tactical call taken in the context of political realities in the southern state, sources said.

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Ex-CMs retained

Former chief ministers Raman Singh, Vasundhara Raje, and Raghubar Das are among the seasoned leaders retained as vice-presidents in the new list. Arun Singh, Kailash Vijayvargiya, Dushyant Kumar Gautam, Tarun Chugh, Sunil Bansal, and Vinod Tawde also continue as general secretaries.

Apart from reshuffling its central team, the BJP also effected changes in its leadership in various states. The party appointed Phanindra Nath Sharma, its Haryana state unit general secretary (organisation), and GR Ravindra Raju in a similar position for its Assam and Tripura units. Both Raju and Sharma will be swapping their positions. Vivek Dadhakar will be taking over as the general secretary (organisation) in the party’s Andaman and Nicobar unit.

BJP’s general secretaries (organisation) in its state units are generally drawn from the RSS and are key to the execution of its policies and programmes and serve as a link between the party and its ideological mentor.

Nadda’s tenure as BJP president was extended in January this year to allow him to be at the helm during the next Lok Sabha polls.

(With agency inputs)