Raje, Raman Singh, ex-Aligarh Univ VC Tariq Mansoor appointed BJP's national V-P (Ld)

BJP President Jagat Prakash Nadda on Saturday announced the names of party's national office-bearers with two former chief ministers -- Raman Singh and Vasundhara Raje -- from the poll-bound states of Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan being appointed as national vice-presidents.

There are 13 vice-presidents, nine general secretaries, including B L Santhosh as the in-charge of the organisation, and 13 secretaries in the list.

The BJP also appointed party MLC and former Aligarh Muslim University vice-chancellor Tariq Mansoor, a Pasmanda Muslim as BJP vice-president, while Anil Antony, son of veteran Congress leader AK Antony, who switched to the BJP, has been appointed as national secretary of the party.

The fresh appointments in the BJP comes ahead of the crucial assembly elections in states of Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh scheduled later this year, and the 2024 Lok Sabha elections scheduled next year.

According to an official communique issued by the BJP, besides Raje and Singh, former Jharkhand chief minister Raghubar Das, senior party leader Baijayant Panda and Rekha Verma have also been named as vice-presidents of the party.

In view of the assembly polls, party leaders from Chhattisgarh Saroj Pandey and Lata Usendi, Telangana party leader DK Aruna, Madhya Pradesh leader Soudan Singh have also been included in the national vice-president list.

Meanwhile, senior party leaders Arun Singh, Kailash Vijayvargiya, Dushyanth Kumar Gautam and Tarun Chugh are among the names of national general secretaries appointed. The party has also included former Telangana state unit chief Sanjay Bandi in the national general secretaries list of the party.

As per the release, other office-bearers appointed by Nadda include the party's national secretary.

Besides Anil Antony, Pankaja Munde and Rituraj Sinha are among the national secretaries announced by the BJP.

However, several people like Dilip Ghosh, CT Ravi, Dilip Saikia, Harish Dwivedi, Sunil Deodhar and Vinod Sonkar have been removed as national office bearers of the BJP. Former Union minister Radha Mohan Singh, a Lok Sabha MP from Bihar, has also been dropped as a party vice-president.

Earlier this week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had assured that India will be among the top three economies of the world in his third term, in an apparent reference that his government will return to power again in 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

The BJP has exuded confidence that it will return to power again in 2024 general elections.