BJP president JP Nadda on Thursday announced a re-constituted 80-member National Executive of the party, dropping Maneka Gandhi, Varun Gandhi, and Subramanian Swamy.
The key decision-making body has not held its meet in the last two years. The next National Executive meeting will be held on November 7 in Delhi.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and senior Union Ministers, State leaders and veterans like LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, are on the list.
Varun has been backing agitating farmers’ demands going against the party line on the issue and had demanded the arrest of those responsible for running-over farmers in the Lakhimpur violence in UP and also went on to share a viral video.
Besides Maneka and Varun, BJP president removed former Union Minister Chaudhary Birender Singh who was also opposing the three controversial Central farm laws.
Another BJP leader from UP Vinay Katiyar who, earlier in time, was associated with the Ram temple movement, has been left out from the list of the BJP executive members.
Swamy, who had for long, gone public with his no-holds-barred criticism of the Modi Government’s handling of county’s economic and foreign policy has been removed from the BJP executive .
Many Union Ministers, including Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh Nitin Gadkari, Piyush Goyal, MA Naqvi, Jyoiraditya Scindia and recently inducted IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw are part of the top decision-making body.
Former Union Ministers like Harsh Vardhan, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Prakash Javadekar and Santosh Gangwar who were dropped from the Modi Cabinet on July 8 reshuffle, have retained their place on the national executive list.
The women members in the list include Union Ministers Nirmala Sitharaman, Smiriti Irani, Meenakshi Lekhi, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, and Hema Malini and Rupa Ganguly (both LS MPs).
Besides, former Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa, BJP Yuva Morcha Chief and Lok Sabha MP Tejashwi Surya and Swapandas Gupta (RS MP) have been nominated as executive members.
Apart from 80 regular members, the executive will also have 50 special invitees and 179 permanent invitees. All BJP Chief Ministers, Deputy CMs, national spokespersons, office bearers, state president, and legislature party leaders are in the list.
Interestingly, the National Executive body which takes all important decisions relating to the party has not met since January 2019 which is unprecedented.
BJP’s Constitution mandates meeting of “National Executive and State Executive - Once every three months.”
The conditions created by the Covid19 apart, BJP executive meeting has been unduly delayed and its significance considerably reduced since the beginning of 2014 with Modi at the helm.
As against the pre-2014 phase when the party used to be held its National Council and National Executive meetings across different States, the BJP has now made it all Delhi-centric.