BJP president Nitin Nabin on Tuesday appointed Rajya Sabha MP and national general secretary Vinod Tawde as the party’s in-charge for Uttar Pradesh. Newly appointed national secretary Jagdish Ishwarbhai Patel has been named co-in-charge.
Rajya Sabha MP and newly appointed BJP national general secretary Satish Poonia has been given charge of Punjab, while Rajya Sabha MP Tarun Chugh will oversee party affairs in Gujarat, according to a party notification.
The BJP said the appointments will take immediate effect.
"These appointments will come into effect immediately. The appointment of other state in-charges will be made in due course; meanwhile, the current Prabhari arrangement will continue," the party said in a circular.
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Poll-bound states get new organisational faces
The appointments come ahead of assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, which are due early next year. Gujarat is scheduled to hold its assembly polls later in 2027.
The changes are part of a wider organisational exercise by the BJP under Nabin. A day earlier, the party announced a revamped national team that brought in several new faces, including former Union minister Smriti Irani as a general secretary and former RSS functionary Ram Madhav as a vice president.
BJP expands national team
The number of BJP vice presidents has risen to 13 from 11, with nine new appointments. The party has also increased the number of national general secretaries from seven to eight.
The new team has 16 national secretaries, compared with 11 in the previous setup.
Tawde and Sunil Bansal are the only two national general secretaries retained in the new team. Poonia, who previously served as Rajasthan BJP president, is among the new additions to the eight-member general secretary team.
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According to party sources, Tawde and Bansal were retained in recognition of their organisational work. Sources also cited Bansal’s contribution to the BJP’s victory in the West Bengal Assembly polls.
Tarun Chugh gets central office role
Chugh has also been appointed the BJP’s central office in-charge, replacing Rajya Sabha MP Arun Singh.
The latest appointments give the party’s newly constituted national team responsibilities in three states that will be important to its electoral and organisational planning over the coming months.