BJP unveils new Bihar team: Mix of old and new faces; leaders from across castes, regions

Veteran leaders such as former minister Bhim Singh Chandravanshi, former MLA Mithilesh Tiwari, and Jagannath Thakur are on the list and so are young faces such as Guru Prakash Paswan (national spokesperson), Santosh Pathak (state spokesperson), Rajesh Verma, and Shivesh Ram.

The team has seven OBCs — three Vaishyas, two Kushwahas, and a Kurmi and Yadav each. There are five members from the Economically Backward Castes (EBCs), one each from the Kahar, Kumhar, Nonia, Dhanuk, and Nishad communities. From the Scheduled Caste (SC) community, there is one leader each from the Paswan, Ravidas, and Dangi groups. The list also includes four Rajputs, three each from the Bhumihar and Brahmin communities, and a Kayasth leader.

The core BJP base, which the party has cultivated over the years, is upper castes and OBCs (excluding Yadavs). Recently, it has been able to cultivate support among some SC communities too.

The party previously tried to reach out to the Yadavs — upon whom the Rashtriya Janata Dal, which is part of the Mahagathbandhan alliance led by Nitish Kumar, has a firm hold — in 2022 by attempting to project Union Minister Nityanand Rai, a prominent Yadav face, as a possible chief ministerial candidate in the future.

The leaders in the new state leadership team hail from regions across the state such as Buxar, Bhojpur, Darbhanga, Madhubani, Siwan, Muzaffarpur, Samastipur, Vaishali, Rohtas, East Champaran, Jehanabad, Patna, Saharsa, Gaya, Madgeoura, Purnia, Khagaria, and Gopalganj.

The new vice-presidents are Siddharth Shambhu, Bhim Singh Chandravanshi, Rajendra Singh, Dhirendra Kumar Singh, Sheela Prajapati, Amrita Bhushan, Rajbhushan Nishad, Lalita Kushwaha, Saroj Ranjan Patel, Nutan Singh (the wife of former minister and current MLA Neeraj Singh Bablu), Sanjay Khandelia, and Santosh Pathak. The new state general secretaries are Shivesh Ram (the son of former MP Muni Lal Ram), Mithilesh Tiwari (a former MLA), Jagannath Thakur, Lalan Mandal, and Rajesh Verma.

State secretaries include BJP national spokesperson Guru Prakash Paswan, Santosh Ranjan, Ratnesh Kushwaha, Nandlal Chouhan, Priyambada Kesari, Saroj Jha, Trivikram Singh (the son of former MP Gopal Narayan Singh), Sanjay Gupta, Reeta Verma, Swadesh Yadav, Anil Thakur, and Amit Dangi.