BJP chief Amit Shah inducts Yeddyurappa in new team, Varun Gandhi out

www.mangaloretoday.com

New Delhi, August 16, 2014: Former Karnataka chief minister BS Yeddyurappa has been named one of the 11 vice-presidents of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the new team announced for BJP chief Amit Shah today.
 
Apart from Mr Yeddyurappa, Bandaru Dattatrey and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi are among other vice-presidents named by Mr Shah. His new team will also have eight general secretaries including party’s Bihar in-charge Rajiv Pratap Rudy and RSS spokesperson Ram Madhav.

According to BJP, young and experienced leaders have been given a place in Mr Shah’s team. The party says that half of the team members are below the age of 50, while nearly 90 per cent haven’t touched 60.

"This is a new, young team. Modiji’s mission will be implemented by this new Yuva BJP team under Amit Shah’s leadership," BJP general secretary JP Nadda said.

In a surprising move, BJP MP from Sultanpur, Varun Gandhi, has been dropped as a general secretary by the party.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP’s ideological mentor Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh have held a series of meetings to decide a new team for Mr Shah who became BJP chief last month.

The RSS, which has in recent years sought to play a more involved role in the BJP’s affairs, had backed the appointment as BJP chief of Amit Shah - Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s closest aide and the man he reportedly wanted in that post - to ensure that the party and the government it leads at the Centre have the best coordination. The party may, for the first time, appoint a general secretary who would be in charge of coordination.

The RSS reportedly does not want to repeat what it sees as mistakes made during the Vajpayee regime a decade ago; it believes that the gap between the organisation, the political party and the government had widened then. It also wants to ensure that the BJP being in power does not mean a dilution of the Sangh’s core ideology.