Gadkari infuses experience with new blood, women power

New Delhi, Mar 16: Three months after taking over the reins of BJP as the party faced danger of political obscurity, party chief Nitin Gadkari Tuesday unveiled his handpicked team that will be the face of the saffron party in its new avatar.

From youth to experience, from women to minority - Gadkari has chosen his cards carefully while naming the National Executive Office Bearers of the party.

While women stalwarts like Hema Mailini and Najma Heptulla were named vice-presidents, rebel leader Vasundhara Raje was made a general secretary.

Fire brand leader Varun Gandhi was named secretary, as was cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu and television star Smriti Irani.

Not to leave experience behind, Gadkari inducted the likes of Atal Behari Vajpayee, Lal Krishna Advani and Rajnath Singh in the party's parliamentary board.

Several other senior members, including Murali Manohar Joshi, Bangaru Laxman, Venkaiya Naidu, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, Yashwant Sinha, S S Ahaluwalia and Arun Shouri were also made members of the Board, of which Gadkari will be the president.

Announcing the names, BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said, "The list represents all sections and regions of the country. It is a balanced list with women, Dalits, tribes, all included."

"It is a blend of youth and experience," he added.

Prasad, who has been named a general secretary, has also been retained as the chief spokesperson.

The National Executive consists of 121 members, including 13 Vice-Presidents, 10 General Secretaries, 15 Secretaries and one treasurer.

As provided for in the BJP constitution, the Office Bearers include as many as 13 women, 33pc of the total number. In all, there are 40 women members.

Besides, the President has also constituted BJP's Parliamentary Board.

The names of the members of the Central Election Committee, Morcha Presidents and Conveners of different cells besides some other functionaries will be announced later.



Bharatiya Janata Party National Executive Office Bearers :

President:

Nitin Gadkari



Vice-Presidents:

Shanta Kumar

Kalraj Mishra

Vinay Katiyar

Bhagatsingh Koshiyari

Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi

Karuna Shukla

Najma Heptullah

Hema Malini

Bijoya Chakravarti

Purushottam Rupala

Kiran Ghai



General Secretaries:

Ananth Kumar

Thavarchand Gehlot

Vasundhara Raje

Vijay Goyal

Arjun Munda

Ravishankar Prasad (Chief Spokesperson)

Dharmendra Pradhan

Narendrasingh Tomar

Jagat Prakash Nadda

Ram Lal (Organisation)

V. Satish

Saudan Singh



Secretaries:

Santosh Gangwar

Smriti Irani

Saroj Pande

Kiran Maheshwari

Tapir Gao

Navjot Singh Siddhu

Ashok Pradhan

Varun Gandhi

Muralidhar Rao

Kirit Somaiyya

Laxman

Captain Abhimanyu

Arati Mehra

Bhupendra Yadav

Vani Tripathi



Treasurer:

Piyush Goyal



Official Spokespersons:

Prakash Javdekar

Rajiv Pratap Rudy

Shahnawaz Hussain

Ramnath Kovind

Tarun Vijay

Nirmala Sitharaman



Members:

Atal Bihari Vajpayee

Lal Krishna Advani

Murali Manohar Joshi

Bangaru Laxman

Venkaiya Naidu

Rajnath Singh

Sushma Swaraj

Arun Jaitley

Bal Apte

Yashwant Sinha

Gopinath Munde

S.S.Ahaluwalia

Arun Shouri

Balveer Punj

Chandan Mitra

Mridula Sinha

Shatrughan Sinha

Kaptansigh Solanki

Sumitra Mahajan

Jayavantiben Mehta