NEW DELHI: BJP on Friday assigned organisational responsibilities to a number of senior functionaries, including former chief ministers Vijay Rupani (Gujarat) and Biplab Kumar Deb (Tripura) besides former Union ministers Prakash Javadekar and Mahesh Sharma, making them in-charges of party affairs in different states.
Senior party leader and member of its central election committee Om Mathur will be in-charge of the party’s affairs in Chhattisgarh and its former Uttar Pradesh unit president and Rajya Sabha MP Laxmikant Bajpai will look after Jharkhand.
The party also named general secretary Vinod Tawde as its new in-charge for Bihar, where it lost power after JD(U) snapped ties to align with RJD and others. Mangal Pandey, the former Bihar minister, will look after West Bengal.
Sources said that party president JP Nadda has taken the decisions to utilise the experience of senior leaders.
Harish Dwivedi will continue to be co-incharge for Bihar and the party’s IT cell head Amit Malviya for West Bengal. BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra has been given an important organisational responsibility, being named as the coordinator for eight northeastern states and party’s national secretary Rituraj Sinha as joint coordinator, a party statement said.
Rupani will be in-charge for Punjab and Chandigarh, Deb for Haryana and Javadekar will look after party work in Kerala.
Incidentally, both Gujarat and Tripura are heading for assembly polls and the party's decision to give new responsibilities to Rupani and Deb may have been driven by its desire to keep its affairs in order.
Meanwhile, BJP general secretary Arun Singh will continue to be its in-charge for Rajasthan and P Muralidhar Rao for Madhya Pradesh.
