Team Nadda: Never in Congress, Naga leaders got high roles at national level in organisation

BJP's 'Team Nadda' has a clear message !! Nagaland has been one of the most Congress-friendly states for decades. But never in the Congress, the Naga leaders - a few of them towering personalities- got such high importance at the national level in the organisation.

#NDPP-BJP government is in power in Nagaland and all eyes are on Nagaland development in next few weeks or so when a final peace accord is expected to be inked between the Centre and Naga militant groups.

M Chuba Ao, a former Nagaland unit chief of the BJP, has been made BJP national vice president and the move is seen as a significant one. Naga legislator M Kikon has been for the first time made a national spokesman.

In the Congress there have been stalwarts like S C Jamir and Late Hokishe Sema. of course, both were made Governors in different states, hardly they found roles in national politics. From time to time, nevertheless, Jamir became chairman or convenor of the North East Congress Coordination Committee but that has been chiefly on rotational basis. 

Under P V Narasimha Rao, of course Hokishe Sema got some importance. He was once made a member of the AICC Strategy Committee - a committee then headed by Late Pranab Mukherjee. 

Hokishe also parted ways from the Congress and had associated himself with the defectors' team led by N D Tiwari-Arjun Singh duo. Hokishe was made a member of the Working Committee of the Indira Congress (Tiwari) but that party itself was short lived. 

New Team Nadda has Amit Shah stamp:

Amit Malviya has been retained as the Information and Technology (IT) cell chief despite his row with senior BJP leader Dr Subramanian Swamy.

Shah's close aides Bhupender Yadav and Kailash Vijayvargiya are also in the team as general secretaries.

JP Nadda's New Team has former UP finance minister Rajesh Agarwal, a lawmaker from Bareilly, now party's national Treasurer replacing Piyush Goyal. Rekha Verma, a Kurmi leader, is among the 12 national vice presidents and a Jat MP from Fatehpur Sikri, Rajkumar Chahar, as head of BJP Kisan morcha replacing Virendra Singh Mast. 

While the new Team of office bearers signals clear push for generation next, the Parliamentary Board — the BJP’s highest decision-making body — will also see major surprise.

Deaths of Sushma Swaraj, Ananth Kumar and Arun Jaitley and also the election of former BJP chief M Venkaiah Naidu to the post of the Vice-President of the country.

There are eight others from Uttar Pradesh accommodated in Team Nadda and all roads lead to 2022 March assembly polls.

BJP's farmers' wing will have to gear up for various programmes, seminars and webinars as the Modi government has got entangled with agrarian protest.

One of its oldest NDA constituents —Shiromani Akali Dal of Punjab-- has also deserted the ruling coalition.

The new team has a Muslim too -- in the form of Syed Zafar Islam, also a Rajya Sabha MP, as one of the 25 spokespersons. Sudanshu Trivedi also from the northern state is one of key spokespersons. Gaurav Bhatia, a former Samajwadi Party leader, is also in the BJP national panel of spokespersons.

Except Namo, No one is Permanent 

Importantly, Rajya Sabha MP GVL Narasimha Rao has been dropped as a spokesman and Aparajita Sarangi from Odisha, Rajiv Chandrashekhar from Karnataka and  Guru Prakash from Bihar are now spokespersons.

Some reactions to J P Nadda's New Team: 

## A visibly hurt senior BJP leader Rahul Sinha from Bengal said he has been awarded for 40 years of loyalty and selfless service to the party "I will chalk out a plan in next 10 to 12 days...I had to move out as Trinamool turncoats have to be accomodated".

"Congratulations to the newly appointed office-bearers of d BJP. Grateful to d party leadership for providing me d opportunity to serve for one term as Gen Secretary - Ram Madhav, who is dropped from Team Nadda. (Now speculation rife about his entry into Parliament/Cabinet or even going back to the Sangh or some organisational work in Andhra Pradesh)

Bhupender Yadav, who has been named as general secretary, tweeted saying:

"I take this opportunity to thank PM Shri

@narendramodi

ji and BJP President Shri

@JPnadda

for bestowing their trust in me. Congratulations to all members of Shri Nadda ji’s new team. I will try to discharge all duties given to me to the best of my abilities".

New BJP Youth Wing (Yuva Morcha) chief, Tejasvi Surya, says:

"For a young karyakarta like me to be given responsibility of National Youth Wing of the world’s biggest political party in the world’s youngest country, can only happen in BJP".

He also tweeted:

"The BJYM has been a great vehicle in national transformation. It has provided great leaders to the country. Together, we shall nurture young leadership across the country by reaching the unreached & conquering the unconquered. I invite all young Indians in this mission."

Mukul Roy from West Bengal made national vice president, NTR's daughter Purandeswari makes it as one of the general secretaries 

Shown the door:  Key 

Morcha heads – Poonam Mahajan of Yuva Morcha, Vinod Sonkar of SC Morcha, Ramvichar Netam of ST Morcha, and Abdul Rasheed Ansari of Minority Morcha replaced.

Shivraj Singh Chauhan who is now the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh is out as BJP Vice President. Uma Bharti, Prabhat Jha and Vinay Sahasrabuddhe also dropped while Om Mathur, Shyam Jaju and Avinash Rai Khanna make exit as Vice Presidents. But Dushyant Gautam made general secretary.

The BJP national secretaries list saw a virtual complete change and likes of R.P. Singh, Maheish Girri, H. Raja and Bengal's Rahul Sinha dropped.

In quite a surprise move, former Trinamool lawmaker Anupam Hazra makes it as one of the secretaries. Hazra joined BJP on the eve of 2019 polls and contested unsuccessfully from Jadavpur to actress Mimi Chakrabarty of the Trinamool Congress. 

Darjeeling MP Raju Bista will serve as one of the 25 national spokespersons. Nagaland MLA M Kikon also makes as a spokesman while M Chuba Ao, who had joined BJP wayback in 1991, will be now one of the national vice presidents.
"I am grateful to Mr J P Nadda and the party leadership for reposing faith in me," Chuba said over phone.

New Delhi:

In a major reshuffle in the list of national office bearers, BJP president J P Nadda on Saturdaydropped prominent general secretaries Ram Madhav, P Muralidhar Rao, Saroj Pandey and Anil Jain.

Among the pleasant surprises, former Trinamool Congress leader and Mamata Banerjee's erstwhile aideMukul Roy has been made national vice president.

The list of eight general secretaries has five new faces Dushyant Kumar Gautam, D Purandeswari, C T Ravi, Tarun Chugh and Dilip Saikia.

While Ms Purandeswari, daughter of Late N T Rama Rao, is from Andhra Pradesh; two 'replaced' general secretaries Ram Madhav and R Muralidhar Rao are also from Andhra Pradesh-Telangana region.This indicates BJP will be planning big organisation wise in the two states where erstwhile regional strong outfit TDP of N. Chandrababu Naidu (in Andhra) has been cornered in 2019 polls both in the state assembly and also in Lok Sabha. In Telangana of course the TRS is still a major force.

Member of Parliament from Karnataka Tejasvi Surya, a fiery orator, has been made the president of the party's youth wing replacing Poonam Mahajan.

Surya is the Member of Parliament in the 17th Lok Sabha representing the prestigious Bangalore South constituency.

Among well known faces Bhupender Yadav, Arun Singh and Kailash Vijayvargiya have been retained as general secretaries.

Vijayvargiya has been catering to matters concerning West Bengal wherein the saffron party is set to make a sincere effortto come to power in 2021.  

Replacing Mr Ram Madhav as general secretary is significant as he had earlier handled Jammu and Kashmir, negotiatedwith PDP leaders to run the PDP-BJP regime in the erstwhile state and was also given almost freehand in northeast includingNagaland. 

In 2018 after BJP's ally Naga People's Front (NPF) split at the organisational level and NDPP was floated by incumbent Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio, Mr Madhav was the architect of BJP's tie up with the NDPP.

The NDPP-BJP government is in power in the state and all eyes are on Nagaland development in next one week or so whena final peace accord is expected to be inked between the Centre and Naga militant groups.

M Chuba Ao, a former Nagaland unit chief of the BJP, has been made national vice president and the move is seenas a significant one.

The reshuffle in the BJP's team of national office bearers comes on the eve of a series of polls across the country.

While Bihar goes to the polls next month, the key states of West Bengal, Assam, Kerala and Tamil Nadu go to the pollsby May 2021.

Of course, slowly the focus will also turn to states like Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat - both crucial states go to the assembly polls in March and December 2022 respectively. 

Punjab's former IPS officer Iqbal Singh Lalpura has been made as a national spokesperson.
Another Punjab-based leader Tarun Chugh will be one of the general secretaries.

However, reports from Telangana say Nadda’s jumbo team came as a disappointment to the BJP cadres and leaders in Telugu states.

Of course, firebrand woman leader D.K. Aruna from Telangana is now one of the Vice Presidents.

D Purandeswari was made one of the nine national general secretaries.

Nadda has of course included K. Laxman, former BJP president of Telangana unit, as the new OBC national Morcha president.

Satya Kumar from Andhra Pradesh and considered to be close to Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu, has  found berth as one of the 13 national secretaries.

Ends