Keeping an eye on the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections and Mumbai civic polls, the Mumbai unit of the BJP has given equal preference to Marathi and North Indian communities in its new team announced recently. In the 61-member team, there are a total of 22 Marathi and 21 north Indian faces. It also comprises leaders recently inducted from other parties, including the Shiv Sena. Sena’s Milind Tusalkar and Sunita Yadav have been appointed as vice-president and secretary, respectively. Watch What Else Is making News Besides, the team has 14 members from the Gujrati community, the core base of the party, and one person each from South Indian, Muslim and Dalit communities. The BJP has replaced Bhalchandra Shirsat, two-time former corporator, as the chief spokesperson and appointed Sanju Varma in his place. It has raised many eyebrows in the party as Varma does not have any experience of handling municipal issues or elections. Arvind Desai has been appointed the party treasurer. City BJP chief Ashish Shelar has dropped unit secretary Vivekanad Gupta . Gupta had spoken against the giving of tickets to Prakash Darekar, Prasad Land and RN Singh for the Legislative Council elections in May. Gupta had said outsiders with corruption allegations were being preferred to loyal party workers. “We have given justice to all in the new team,” said Shelar. A Mumbai BJP leader said: “There is a large number of north Indians in Mumbai. We have kept that in mind ahead of the civic polls.”
