Kalyan stays, Advani stamp on Team Rajnath

Rajnath, however, kept the seventh post of general secretary vacant in anticipation that Sanjay Joshi may be cleared in the sex CD scandal. Sources said Joshi would be back as general secretary (organisation) in a couple of months.

Former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh was retained as party vice-president. Three outgoing vice-presidents—Bal Apte, Babulal Marandi and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi—were also retained in their job. Dalit leader Kailash Meghwal, a close aide of Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, former Himachal Pradesh CM Shanta Kumar, former Delhi CM Sahib Singh Verma, Tamil Nadu leader L Ganeshan and former Union minister Sumitra Mahajan would be other vice-presidents. Sumitra filled the slot vacated by Jaskaur Meena, new ST Morcha president and Verma replaces a fellow-Jat Kishan Singh Sangwan.

Former Union minister Shahnawaz Hussain and Delhi leader Vijay Goel were named secretaries.

Ravi Shankar Prasad was made the party spokesman. Arun Jaitley and Prakash Javadekar would continue as spokesmen and Manvendra Singh would act as an additional spokesman.

The National Council created two more seats in the CPB. Modi, an OBC, and Madhya Pradesh Dalit leader Satya Narain Jatiya were nominated against them. The move came to blunt the criticism of Bharati, who had alleged that the central leadership was dominated by upper-caste leaders. All other members of the CPB—A B Vajpayee, Advani, Venkaiah Naidu, Murli Manohar Joshi, Jaswant Singh, Pramod Mahajan, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley—were retained.

M K Annasaheb Patil, who was expelled by Parliament after cash-for-query scam, lost the job of Kisan Morcha chief. He was replaced by Vinod Pandey, a Rajnath aide from Gorakhpur. Presidents of other wings—Dharmendra Pradhan (Youth), Ramnath Kovind (SC), Vajpyee’s niece Karuna Shukla (Women) and Tanvir Haider Usmani (Minority)—stayed.

The five-member disciplinary committee would constitute of Ram Naik, who would be the chairman, former Delhi BJP president O P Kohli, Brijlal Rinwa of Punjab, Sheshgiri Rao from Andhra Pradesh and Nandkishore Yadav from Bihar.

Former Delhi CM Madan Lal Khurana also staged a comeback to the National Executive. Dissident leader Shatrughan Sinha remained a member of the National Executive despite his recent utterances against the party leadership. Actress Smriti Irani, however, did not figure in any of the list.