Before the 2024 elections, the BJP reorganizes its team of central office holders and names Pasmanda Muslim Tariq Mansoor as vice president

On Saturday, Bharatiya Janata Party president J P Nadda reorganized the party’s team of central office-bearers. He named Tariq Mansoor, a Pasmanda Muslim from Uttar Pradesh, as one of the party’s vice presidents and former Telangana party boss Bandi Sanjay Kumar as the national general secretary.

According to a PTI report, Bandi Sanjay’s appointment as Telangana BJP president a few weeks after his removal as that position’s president sends a message to the party’s cadres that the national leadership still values him and that his removal was a tactical decision made in light of the political conditions in the southern state.

 

According to a PTI report, C T Ravi, a politician from Karnataka, and Dilip Saikia, an Assam Lok Sabha Member, have been fired from their positions as the BJP’s general secretaries. It is possible that they would run for office in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

 

Some people believe that Ravi’s exclusion from the list of general secretaries—who, in contrast to vice presidents, who are mostly figureheads, drive the party’s policies and agenda on a national and state level—is a result of the BJP’s significant loss in the most recent Karnataka assembly elections.

 

In the recently concluded Karnataka assembly elections, the four-term MLA narrowly lost his seat.

 

Tariq Mansoor, a former vice-chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), has been promoted to vice-president as part of the BJP’s outreach among Pasmanda Muslims. Tariq Mansoor is now an MLC in the state of Uttar Pradesh. This is seen as a component of the party’s outreach to Pasmanda (regressive) Muslims.

 

One of the two new names on the list of nine general secretaries, seven of whom are still in their positions, is Radha Mohan Agrawal, a Rajya Sabha member from Uttar Pradesh.

 

The new secretaries include Rajya Sabha members from UP and Assam, Surendra Singh Nagar, and Kamakhya Prasad Tasa, as well as Anil Antony, son of renowned Congressman A K Antony.

 

While Tasa has long been the representative of the tea tribes in the northeastern state, Nagar is a powerful Gurjar leader from western Uttar Pradesh.

 

On the list, there are 13 vice presidents, 9 general secretaries, including B L Santhosh as the organization’s head, and 13 secretaries.

 

Radha Mohan Singh, a former Union minister and Bihar legislator, has been removed from the position of party vice president.

 

Laxmikant Bajpai, a former Rajya Sabha member and BJP vice-president for Uttar Pradesh, is one of the two new vice presidents.

 

Now that Mansoor has been appointed as a vice president of the party, there are two Muslims in that position. Abdulla Kutty, a leader in Kerala, is another person on the list who belongs to a minority group.

 

The new list includes seasoned leaders like former chief ministers Raman Singh, Vasundhara Raje, and Raghubar Das as vice presidents.

 

As general secretaries, so do Arun Singh, Kailash Vijayvargiya, Dushyant Kumar Gautam, Tarun Chugh, Sunil Bansal, and Vinod Tawde.

 

The BJP extended Nadda’s term as president in January of this year so that he could lead the party during the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.