By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 23 Aug: BJP’s new State President Mahendra Bhatt has announced his executive committee after getting the green signal from BJP National President JP Nadda. In Bhatt’s new team, the attempt has been made to create regional and ethnic balances and also give representation to women and young faces.
Bhatt has announced in his new team, eight vice-presidents, three state general secretaries and eight state secretaries. With the exception of a handful of old faces, who have been retained, most office bearers of the new executive committee are new faces. All three general secretaries are new while one existing general secretary, Kuldeep Kumar, has been appointed as Vice President, while the State Treasurer, Puneet Mittal has been retained in his existing post. Similarly, State Media In Charge Manveer Chauhan has also been retained.
A deeper look at the new executive committee indicates that an attempt has been made to ensure caste, regional and ethnic balance. Due emphasis has been given to representation of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Leaders as well as Other Backward Castes (OBC) in the new team, besides maintaining balance between the Garhwal and Kumaon regions.
However, some names do surprise the political analysts since they are considered to be relatively lightweight leaders, while some others face allegations of anti-party activities, too. In this connection, it will be pertinent to point out here that former MLA of Yamunotri, Kedar Singh Rawat, has raised concern over inclusion of some who had worked against the official party candidates in the last assembly elections.
Bhatt has appointed 8 Vice Presidents, 3 General Secretaries and 8 State Secretaries. More than 30 names were announced for various posts in the state executive.
Those appointed include- Balwant Singh Bhauryal, Kailash Sharma, Kuldeep Kumar, Kalpana Saini, Neeru Garg, Mukesh Koli, Shailendra Bisht and DeshrajKarnwal as State Vice Presidents, Khilendra Chaudhary, Rajendra Bisht and Aditya Kothari as State General Secretaries; Meena Gangola, Aditya Chauhan, Meera Raturi, Hema Joshi, Lilavati Rana, Rakesh Nainwal, Gurvinder Singh Chandok and Vikas Sharma as State Secretaries: Puneet Mittal as State Treasurer and Saket Aggarwal as state Co-Treasurer; Kaustubhanand Joshi has been retained as State Office Secretary; Manveer Chauhan has been retained as Media In-charge; Pushkar Singh Kala and Rishi Kandwal have been appointed as State Cells In-charge. In addition, Anil Shahi and Ramesh Garhia have been appointed as Departments In-charge.
Shashank Rawat has been appointed as BJP Yuva Morcha President while former MLA Asha Nautiyal has been appointed as State Mahila Morcha President. Apart from this, Jogendra Pundir has been appointed as State President, BJP Kisan Morcha, Rakesh Giri has been appointed as BJP’s State OBC Morcha. Sameer Arya has been appointed as SC Morcha president while Intezar Hussain has been made the state president of BJP Minority Morcha.