BJP parliamentary board rejigged; LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi dropped

NEW DELHI: Lead by party president Amit Shah, BJP on Tuesday announced a twelve-member Parliamentary Board, which includes names of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley among others.

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and BJP general Secretary J P Nadda have been included in revamped Parliamentary Board. The complete list of the BJP Parliamentary Board reads: Amit Shah; Narendra Modi; Rajnath Singh; Sushma Swaraj; Arun Jaitley; M Venkaiah Naidu; Nitin Gadkari; Ananth Kumar; Thawarchand Gehlot; Shivraj Singh Chouhan; J P Nadda; Ramlal; Jual Oram; Shahnawaz Hussain; Vijaya Rahatkar.

The names of veteran party leaders LK Advani and MM Joshi were dropped from the board, but were included in a new body, the ' Margdarshak Mandal'. The 'Margdarshak Mandal' (guiding body) is a five-member body that consitutes of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Narendra Modi, LK Advani, MM Joshi and Rajnath Singh.

Recently, Amit Shah announced his new team comprising of 11 Vice Presidents, 8 general secretaries and 14 secretaries. While the list of Vice Presidents included BS Yedurappa and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, the general secretaries' list has names like Ram Madhav, Rajeev Pratap Ruddy and Jagat Prakash Nadda.

Shah, a close and controversial aide of Modi, was appointed to the top post in BJP at a meeting of Parliamentary Board where incumbent Rajnath Singh resigned after a tenure of one-and-a-half years.

The former Minister of State for Home in Gujarat is largely credited for BJP's stunning performance in UP where it got 71 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats.