For BJP, reshuffle has no surprises

Party vice-president Karuna Shukla, niece of former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, was named president of Mahila Morcha. Secretary Dharmendra Pradhan was appointed president of Yuva Morcha.

While Naidu did not strike at general secretary Pramod Mahajan, he did clip his wings a little. The important post of secretary, central parliamentary board (CPB) and central election committee (CEC) was taken away from Mahajan and he was instead made in-charge of Maharashtra which goes to Assembly polls later this year.

Naidu partially yielded to pressure to move out Naqvi, his close confidant, from the post of general secretary: he shifted him to the less important post of vice-president and allowed him to retain charge of headquarters. Naqvi will remain one of the party spokesmen.

The new team of spokesmen: Jaitley, Yashwant Sinha and Naqvi. Manvendra Singh will be additional spokesman.

Another general secretary, Shivraj Singh Chauhan, who had so far failed to impress, was made secretary, CPB and CEC. Since it generally falls in the domain of general secretary (organisation), the move shows an attempt to check incumbent Sanjay Joshi from consolidating his position. Sudheendra Kulkarni, Vajpayee’s former aide, will occupy the newly-created post of secretary to Naidu. Of the seven vice-presidents, Bal Apte and Babulal Marandi were retained. Pyarelal Khandelwal had already expressed his desire to be relieved of charge. Dilip Singh Bhuria was dropped while Sushil Modi and former secretary Jaskaur Meena were named vice-presidents. Treasurer Ramdas Agrawal, who never was very comfortable with Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje back home in Rajasthan, was replaced by Sukumar Nambiar who once held the post. Additional spokesmen Prakash Javadekar was reverted to Maharashtra.

Of the seven secretaries, L Ganesan was retained while Om Prakash Dhankhad, Lalita Kumaramangalam, Bharot Singh and Harinder were dropped. The new secretaries are Shahnawaz Hussain, Kishan Singh Sangwan, Bhai Girkar, Sadananda Gowda, Kiran Maheshwari and Tapir Gao.

Frontal organisations too have new bosses: Faggan Singh Kulaste (SC Morcha), Ramnath Kovind (ST Morcha), Annasaheb M K Patil (Kisan Morcha) and Tanveer Haider Usmani (Minorities Morcha). Those nominated to the 10-member CPB and 16-member CEC include Vajpayee, L K Advani, Jaswant Singh, Murli Manohar Joshi and Sushma Swaraj.

Several important leaders who have been dropped from the national executive include Karia Munda, Satya Narayan Jatiya and Sunil Shastri. Jatiya’s exclusion may signal that he’s in the running for the Lok Sabha deputy speaker.

Actors Hema Malini and Vijaya Shanti will be members of the executive while Smriti Irani will be a permanent invitee.