New Delhi: To keep an eye on the 2024 general elections, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is likely to continue with the changes in its key positions. In a fresh set of appointments, party chief Jagat Prakash Nadda on Friday officially appointed 15 new in-charges and co-in-charges for states and Union Territories. However, the twists persist with the appointments of the saffron party.
Firstly, the BJP has appointed two former chief ministers of poll-bound states — Vijay Rupani (Gujarat) and Biplab Kumar Deb (Tripura) as states' in-charge. Rupani has been shifted to Union Territory Chandigarh and Punjab while Deb will now look after the organisational and political developments of Haryana. However, the party leadership has been taciturn over its appointments.
"Chief Ministers or Cabinet ministers belong to the party, whether they are incumbent or not. They serve the party's will and keeping in mind their strength, the appointment has been drafted," a senior party leader informed Millennium Post on condition of anonymity.
Secondly, the uncertainty remains with the appointment of the in-charge in the state of West Bengal. Recently, BJP national general secretary Sunil Bansal was officially announced as the in-charge of three states — Odisha, Telangana and West Bengal. However, the recent communique mentioned that a member of the Bihar Legislative Council, former state president of BJP and former state Cabinet minister Mangal Pandey has been appointed the in-charge for West Bengal. He will be assisted by Amit Malviya and Asha Lakra. When asked, BJP's national general secretary Arun Singh said: "All appointments will remain intact till the next announcement," while senior BJP leader Amit Malviya informed: "As the party has an immense potential in West Bengal, it will have two in-charges now."
At the same time, he considered Sunil Bansal's appointment of three states as "prosperous" and "valuable" for BJP's organisation. Another senior leader of the party confirmed that Bansal will remain the "Kshetriya Prabhari" (region head), whom the state in-charge will report to on organisational or political developments.
Uncertainty prevails in Telangana too where BJP national general secretary Tarun Chugh has been appointed as the new in-charge and will be assisted by Arvind Menon.
Thirdly, two former Central ministers — Prakash Javadekar and Mahesh Sharma have been appointed BJP's state in-charges with Javadekar given the responsibility to look after Kerala and Sharma the state of Tripura.
Other important appointments include former Uttar Pradesh BJP president and Rajya Sabha member Laxmikant Bajpai as the new in-charge of Jharkhand; Vinod Tawde for Bihar; Om Mathur for Chhattisgarh; P Murlidhar Rao for Madhya Pradesh who will be assisted by Pankaja Munde and Ram Shankar Katheria. BJP national general secretary is the new in-charge of Rajasthan, and Lok Sabha member Vinod Sonkar has been assigned Daman and Diu and Dadra And Nagar Haveli. BJP national spokesperson Sambit Patra is the new coordinator of the North-east states with Rituraj Sinha as the joint coordinator.
BJP has been conducting the revamp of the organisation for a couple of months. The party's top brass announced new state presidents, drafted a new Parliamentary Board and now the new state in-charges.