BJP rejigs its national decision-making body

NEW DELHI: : The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday recast its national executive committee by dropping some leaders who have been critical of government policies in recent weeks, and inducting key Union ministers in the crucial decisionmaking body.

Among those inducted were Union ministers S Jaishankar, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Anurag Thakur, and Ashwani Vaishnaw. Those dropped included Varun Gandhi, Maneka Gandhi and Subramanian Swamy.

Chaudhary Birendra Singh, also dropped, and Varun Gandhi have been critical of the government’s handling of the farm agitation, while Swamy has hit out at the government on issues of economic policy.

Chaudhary, a former Union minister, joined a protest against the three contentious farm laws in Rohtak district of Haryana last year. Varun Gandhi has been tweeting about the need to adopt a more humane approach to deal with the farmers’ agitation, and through this week, he has expressed his support for the farmers over the incident at Lakhimpur Kheri, where a convoy ran over a group of protesting farmers.

The BJP downplayed the exclusion of members who were seen to be critical of some of the party’s policy decisions.

“Whenever the committee is reconstituted some names are dropped to accommodate newer faces,” said a senior party leader on the condition of anonymity.

The national executive committee includes party patriarchs LK Advani and MM Joshi apart from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union defence minister Rajnath Singh and Union home minister Amit Shah. The central decision making body also includes 50 special invitees and 179 permanent invitees, including chief ministers, deputy chief ministers of Bjp-ruled states, leaders of the legislative assemblies and state presidents.

According to a party functionary, BJP president JP Nadda will preside over a meeting of the national officer bearers on October 18 and the meeting of the reconstituted national executive committee will be held on November 7. As per the party’s constitution, the committee lays down rules for carrying out functions of all units and organs of the party and frames rules for the maintenance of party funds which have to be audited and approved annually. The committee also has the mandate to allocate powers to all other units and organs, to frame rules, to create machinery for holding elections and for settlement of disputes.

The party’s constitution also requires the national executive and state executive to meet once every three months. Owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, the national executive has not met in the last two years.

Among other key inclusions in the 80-member list are Union minister Meenakshi Lekhi, actor-turned-politician Mithun Chakraborty and former railway minister Dinesh Trivedi, who quit the TMC and joined the BJP ahead of the West Bengal election. Khushbu Sundar has been included in the list of special invitees from Tamil Nadu; she quit the Congress to join the BJP.

AMONG THOSE INDUCTED WERE UNION MINISTERS S JAISHANKAR, JYOTIRADITYA SCINDIA, ASHWANI VAISHNAW AND ANURAG THAKUR