Shah rejigs BJP core team, brings in close confidants

There are 18 departments in the newly restructured set-up including one on good governance, one on Central and State Government programs co-ordination for which Shah has appointed party vice-president Dr Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, Sidharth Nath Singh, Mahesh Giri and Raj Shekhar.

Sahasrabuddhe was also given an additional charge to look after the new department on Policy Research along with Anirban Ganguly who is the Director of Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Foundation and <g data-gr-id="23" style="display: inline; color: inherit !important; font-size: inherit !important; -webkit-background-size: 0px 2px, 100% 2px; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: transparent; background-image: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAA+gAAAACCAYAAADLlPadAAAABmJLR0QA/wD/AP+gvaeTAAAAK0lEQVRYhe3OMQEAIAwDsA6DHPh/ZoTJ2JMoSPW7PwAAAMCqsx0AAAAAkgHerQKHq3BtYQAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==), url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAACCAYAAACZgbYnAAAABmJLR0QA/wD/AP+gvaeTAAAAEklEQVQImWP4vGvnfyYGBgYGABl4A2hm/SKhAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC); background-size: 0px 2px, 100% 2px; background-position: 200% 100%, 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat, no-repeat;">Vikshut</g>, party leader from Karnataka.

Concerned over “media relation” in the midst of attack from the oppositions over LalitGate and Vyapam scam, Shah has decided to strengthen it with the induction of veteran journalist and party MP MJ Akbar, Shrikant Sharma, Sidharth Nath Singh, Anil Baluni and Swadesh Verma. Party General Secretaries Bhupendra Yadav and Muralidhar Rao will look after Election Management and Training department respectively. Rao will be assisted by Mahesh Sharma, Convenor, and Sunil Pande as Co-Convenor.

Senior party leader Kailash Vijayvargiya, along with Akbar, will also take care of the new department of political feedback and response. Party vice-president Shyam Jaju and Vikash Preetam will look after Publicity Literature department while another vice-president Prabhat Jha will look after party journals and publication department. Jha will be assisted by Shiv Shakti, Sudha Malaiya, Bala Shankar and Mukesh Mishra. Arvind Gupta will continue to look after the Department of IT, website and social media management while Party MP Rajendra Agrawal will take care of Election Commission department along with Om Pathak, Ramakrishanan, Narendra Sawaikar and Rajan Khosla.

Vijay Chauthaiwale continues to head the Foreign Affairs department. He was the vice-president of Torrent group and took leave to work on Modi’s Lok Sabha campaign. He quit the corporate sector last week to take up the party role.

Supreme Court Bar Association’s General Secretary, Aishwayra Bhati has been assigned the task of running the Legal Affairs department along with Jaideep Dhankar, Bikram Banerjee and Sagar. Gopal Krishna Agrawal has been assigned Coordination of Trusts, Vijay Goyel, along with Naveen Sinha, will look after Sahyog and Disaster Relief Services. Another key functionary Arun Singh, who was elevated recently, has been made the in-charge of President’s Office, Tours and Programmes. Anil Jain will look after the Department of National Programmes and Meetings along with RP Singh.