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BJP gets a facelift

Last updated on: June 06, 2004 15:08 IST

The Bharatiya Janata Party, which suffered a shock defeat in the Lok Sabha election, has got a facelift.

BJP president M Venkaiah Naidu has appointed former Union ministers Rajnath Singh and Arun Jaitley as party general secretaries.

Pramod Mahajan, who along with Sanjay Joshi continues to be general secretary in the new team, will prepare the party for the Maharashtra assembly election later this year.

Naidu, who kept the reconstitution of his team in abeyance after taking over as party chief in view of the Lok Sabha election, gave representation to all sections of the society in the reconstituted central office, frontal organisations and national executive, party spokesperson Jaitley said while releasing the list in New Delhi.

Shivraj Singh Chauhan, who was national secretary, is now general secretary. He will also be secretary, parliamentary board and central election committee, a post held by Mahajan.

Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, who was general secretary, is now party vice-president. He will continue to be the party's spokesperson with additional responsibility of headquarters-in-charge.

Besides Naqvi and Jaitley, former external affairs minister Yashwant Sinha will be the BJP's spokesperson. First-time member of Parliament from Barmer, Manvendra Singh, will be additional spokesperson.

Naidu dropped Ramdas Aggarwal as treasurer and replaced him with Sukumar Nambiar, who had held this post when Jana Krishnamurthy was party president.

Another office-bearer who finds himself dropped is vice-president Pyarelal Khandelwal.

Naidu appointed two former chief ministers -- Kalyan Singh (Uttar Pradesh) and Babulal Marandi (Jharkhand) -- as vice-presidents.

Naidu also appointed two women as office-bearers -- former Union minister Jaskaur Meena (vice-president) and Kiran Maheshwari (secretary).

Of the 78 members in the newly constituted national executive, 20 are new and 13 are women.

Naidu also made changes in the frontal organisations with Dharmendra Pradhan from Orissa replacing Kishan Reddy as president of the Yuva Morcha.

Karuna Shukla, former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's neice, will head the Mahila Morcha.

Former Union minister Faggan Singh Kulaste from Madhya Pradesh will head the Scheduled Tribe Morcha while Ramnath Kovid has been retained as head of the Scheduled Caste Morcha.

Annasaheb M K Patil from Maharashtra will be president, Kisan Morcha, while Tanveer Haider Usmani will head the Minorities Morcha.

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