By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 2 Dec: BJP MLA from Haridwar and former State BJP President Madan Kaushik, who has been sidelined since the state assembly elections, has now been nominated as a Special Invitee to the BJP’s National Executive Committee. The nomination has been done on the direction of BJP President JP Nadda. An order to this effect was today issued under the signature of the Party’s General Secretary, Arun Singh. In all, 9 nominations have been made of which 5 are special invitees and Kaushik is the only one from Uttarakhand to be nominated.
Interestingly, there are several ex-Congress leaders who have been nominated including Captain Amarinder Singh and Sunil Jakhar, who along with Swatantra Dev Singh (UP), have been appointed as members of the National Executive. Those nominated as special invitees in addition to Kaushik are Vishnudev Sao from Chhattisgarh, S Rana Gurmit Singh from Punjab, Manoranjan Kalia from Punjab and Amanjot Kaur Ramuwalia also from Punjab. Jaiveer Shergil from Punjab has been appointed spokesman of the party.
It may be recalled that Kaushik had led the party during the state assembly elections held in March this year. However, despite the party managing to retain power for the first time ever in Uttarakhand, much of the credit for the party’s victory had gone to Pushkar Singh Dhami, who had only months before been appointed as CM of Uttarakhand. Soon after the elections, Kaushik was further replaced as BJP State President by Mahendra Bhatt, leaving him without any post for all this time. It may further be recalled that Kaushik was a high profile minister in the Trivendra Singh Government for about 4 years, particularly after the untimely death of Cabinet Minister Prakash Pant, he had been appointed as Parliamentary Affairs as well as Finance Minister along with the portfolios that he was already in charge of.
It remains to be seen, if this is a move to placate him or the party is mulling giving him larger responsibilities in the time to come.
