J&K hands in BJP’s central team dropped as Nadda affects shakeup

Dr Narinder Singh elevated as national secretary

JAMMU: In a major organisational shakeup affected by BJP national president JP Nadda, party’s key faces handling Jammu and Kashmir affairs for a long time have been dropped.
While Ram Madhav –who has been looking after Jammu and Kashmir affairs for over six years –has been dropped as General Secretary, the national Vice President Avinash Rai Khana’s name also missing from the new list announced Saturday afternoon. Jammu and Kashmir was among the assignments of Khanna.
Meanwhile, Narinder Singh, senior party leader from Jammu and Kashmir, has been elevated as national secretary. Singh, who was a key contender for state presidentship in Jammu and Kashmir when Ravinder Raina was elected for the second term, is considered close to Nadda since his times at YS Parmar University in Solan Himachal Pradesh.
Madhav, who has remained closely associated with Jammu and Kashmir affairs even beyond the organisational call, is credited for stitching alliance of BJP with the ideological rival PDP in 2015. His exit from the national body of office bearers comes as a surprise.
Even as the party named new faces as national office bearers, those to be responsible for Jammu and Kashmir were not immediately known as the party yet to allocate charges among the new team members.
Madhav, it may be mentioned here, was associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological mentor of the BJP, when he was brought into the party and minded its political affairs in key regions like Jammu and Kashmir, and the North East.
Madhav could get role to play even as his high profile and proclivity to speak to the media on a variety of topics, including those not seen to fall in his domain, may not have gone down well with a section of the party. His strong defense of the Modi government and the party's policies in the media and other forums, including think tanks, are seen as his strength.
In a tweet, Madhav said, "Congratulations to the newly appointed office-bearers of the BJP. Grateful to the party leadership for providing me the opportunity to serve for one term as Gen Sec."
The BJP leadership has from time to time shown its displeasure with outspoken leaders, especially when their comments are seen to be not in line with the party's ideological positions or to be outright embarrassment. This may have cost some people their positions.
Amid possibility of a Union Cabinet reshuffle, probably after results of Bihar assembly polls and other bypolls are announced later this year, the sources said chances of some of these leaders, whose name no longer figure in the list of office-bearers, finding a place in the government should not be ruled out.
The 70-member new team has 12 vice presidents including former chief ministers, eight general secretaries, three national joint secretaries and 13 secretaries.
Besides Madhav, prominent among the missing from the list are P Muralidhar Rao, Anil Jain and Saroj Pande, who were general secretaries in Amit Shah’s team.
Besides Avinash Rai Khanna, the vice presidentd dropped in the reshuffle are Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, Om Mathur and Shyam Jaju. Nadda has appointed Rajesh Agarwal as the new treasurer, a post that has been vacant for a long time since Piyush Goyal was inducted into the Union Cabinet.
Karnataka MP Tejasvi Surya, a fiery speaker, has been made the president of the party’s youth wing.
Former chief ministers Raman Singh and Vasundhara Raje have been retained as party vice presidents of Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, respectively. Baijayant Panda also will continue as party vice president of Odisha. Former Union Minister Radha Mohan Singh, former Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das, West Bengal leader Mukul Roy, Kerala leader P Abdulla Kutty, MPs Rekha Vermam Annpurna Devi and Bharti Ben Shiyal have also been named as vice presidents.
General Secretaries Bhupender Yadav, Arun Singh and Kailash Vijayvargiya have been retained in the same role. Dushyant Kumar Gautam, C T Ravi (MLA Karnataka), D Purandareswari (former Union Minister), Tarun Chugh, Dilip Saikia (MP) are the other general secretaries.
B L Santosh will continue as general secretary (organisation) while national joint secretaries V Satish, Saudan Singh and Shivprakash remain in the same posts.
Pankaja Munde has been inducted as national secretary in the new team.
In the media team, Rajya Sabha MP Anil Baluni will continue as the head of the team and Bihar MLC Sanjay Mayukh will be co-incharge. Rajya Sabha MP Rajiv Chandrashekhar, Lok Sabha MP and former I&B minister Rajyavardhan Rathore, Hina Gavit MP, Guruprakash, Raju Bista MP will be among the spokespersons.