The new national executive committee of BJP announced on Thursday includes several leaders from Uttar Pradesh with the party keeping in mind 'seniority' and caste equations in the poll-bound state. With the BJP making inroads in West Bengal, it is probably the first time that the national executive has so many members from the state.
Party sources said that seniority and caste factors in the state were taken into consideration while finalising the members from Uttar Pradesh.
Apart from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, there are 12 senior party members from Uttar Pradesh in the 80-member national executive.
They include union ministers Rajnath Singh, Mahendra Nath Pandey, Smriti Irani, MA Naqvi, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, Sanjeev Balyan besides Murli Manohar Joshi, Santosh Gangwar, Swami Prasad Maurya, Dara Singh Chauhan, Brijesh Pathak and Rajya Sabha MP Anil Jain.
Party leaders said that the national executive is a strategic committee that deliberates the performance and the future direction of the policies and tasks to be undertaken by the government, if the party is in power, and also programmes by the organisation.
Another state that has got prominence in the national executive is West Bengal. The BJP hopes to consolidate its gains in the state and build on the seats it won in recent elections.
Those in the national executive from the state include some leaders who joined the BJP from Trinamool Congress ahead of assembly polls - Dinesh Trivedi and Bharati Ghosh.
Swapan Dasgupta, actor-turned-politician Mithun Chakraborty, Anirban Ganguly, Mukt Mani Adhikari, Jayanta Roy, Rajib Banerjee, Ashok Lahiri, Debashree Chowdhury, Rupa Ganguli and Mafuza Khatun are also in the list.
Lt General Subrata Saha (retd) has been given a place from Delhi.
BJP sources said the party has given a signal to the West Bengal leaders that the party has its focus on the state despite losing the assembly polls earlier this year.
"This is probably the first time that so many people from West Bengal have been accommodated in the committee. It is a clear message to the state leaders that the party has its focus on Bengal," a party leader said
Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections are scheduled to take place early next year.
In the 2017 Assembly elections, the BJP won a landslide victory winning 312 Assembly seats.
The party secured 39.67 per cent vote share in the elections for 403-member Assembly.
Samajwadi Party (SP) bagged 47 seats, BSP won 19 while Congress could get only seven seats.
( With inputs from ANI )
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