shimla: In a sudden change, BJP national president J P Nadda has appointed former Speaker and senior party leader Rajeev Bindal as new party chief in Himachal Pradesh.
Bindal will take charge from Suresh Kashyap, a sitting Lok Sabha member, who had offered his resignation from the post a few days back to focus on his next Lok Sabha polls from Shimla in 2024.
This will be the second term for Bindal who had abruptly resigned in 2022 following Congress’ charges about his alleged involvement in a medical purchase scam during the BJP rule in 2020.
The state Vigilance and Anti Corruption Bureau had arrested the then director health services Ajay Sharma after an audio-clip went viral and the person on the audio clip happened to be close to Bindal. A five-time MLA, Bindal had resigned on the moral grounds and offered to face any probe asserting that he had nothing to do with the alleged purchase scam.
Prior to this, Bindal had been the Speaker of the state assembly and the state health minister. He however lost poll in 2022 to Ajay Solanki of the Congress from Nahan.
Besides appointing a new state party chief, Nadda also also named Siddarthan as new organisational general secretary in Himachal Pradesh.
He will replace Pawan Rana, who has been shifted to Delhi.
The outgoing BJP state president Suresh Kashyap, who is also a sitting MP from Shimla, had offered his resignation from the post to Nadda last week. Earlier he had also informed about his move to former chief minister Jai Ram Thakur,who is also leader of opposition.
Kashyap, who had replaced Bindal in 2022, had been member of the state assembly twice from Pacchad (Sirmaur) and belonged to the Dalit community.
Though there have been speculations about names like Indu Goswami, a sitting Rajya Sabha member, Sikander Kumar, another BJP MP and Dalit and Trilok Jamwal, a sitting MLA and Nadda’s close confidant about replacing Kashyap but Nadda favoured Bindal since he has been an experienced leader.