Instead, the saffron party has added BS Yediyurappa, Union Minister of Ports, Shipping, and Waterways Sarbananda Sonowal, and K Laxman to the board. The party has also added three other new faces to the BJP's apex organisational body. The step is being seen as an attempt by the party to make the parliamentary board more socially and regionally representative.
The BJP's Parliamentary board is headed by the party's national president JP Nadda. The other members include Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Iqbal Singh Lalpura, Sudha Yadav, Satyanarayan Jatiya, and BL Santosh.
Lalpura will be the first Sikh to have a seat in the BJP parliamentary board as a person from a minority community.
A total of 11 members form the Parliamentary board of BJP.
Besides, BJP also rejigged its Central Election Committee and included former Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, Union Minister Bhupender Yadav, Om Mathur, and its women wing chief Vanathi Srinivasan.
Former Union Minister Shahnawaz Hussain and Jual Oram have been dropped from the CEC. All parliamentary board members, which include Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union ministers Amit Shah and Rajnath Singh and BJP president J P Nadda, automatically become part of the CEC, which has some additional members as well. After these changes, the board now has the full strength of 11 members while the CEC has 15 leaders.
The other new board members are K Laxman, Sudha Sadav and Satyanarayan Jatiya while the new entrants to the CEC are Rajasthan leader Om Mathur and BJP women wing chief Vanathi Srinivasan besides Fadnavis and Bhupender Yadav.
This is the first time the board has been rejigged under Nadda, who took over as the party president in 2020. The board had several vacancies caused by the death of Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj while Venkaiah Naidu and Thaawarchand Gehlot had to leave it after becoming Vice President and state governor respectively.
When Shah was the party president, veteran leaders L K Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi were eased out of the crucial party body in 2014 and made members of 'Margdarshak Mandal', as the party on Modi's watch worked to make the organisation and government more youthful.
Among the new board members, Sudha Yadav and Laxman are from the Other Backward Classes while former Union minister Jatia is from the Scheduled Castes. Sonowal is tribal.
Yediyurappa's inclusion highlights the party's efforts to reward the Lingayat leader whose community is critical to its poll prospects in the Karnataka assembly election slated for the next year.
Party sources said the exercise shows how the party "rewards" old workers and values their experience.
Yediyurappa, Jatia and Laxman have given their lives to the party, building it brick by brick from the start, they said.
"There is also an emphasis on diversity. Sonowal is from the Northeast, Laxman and Yediyurappa hail from the South. In Lalpura, there is a Sikh representing minorities," a leader said.
(With agency inputs)
