With 10 vice presidents and 4 general secretaries, BJP Karnataka has undergone a complete overhaul with former ministers appointed as office bearers.
Karnataka BJP President BY Vijayendra at BJP national office bearers meet. (Supplied)
With 2024 Lok Sabha elections barely months away, Karnataka BJP has a whole new team of office bearers to help party prepare for the electoral showdown.
Getting his team in place, Karnataka BJP president BY Vijayendra, on Saturday, 23 December, appointed state-level office-bearers, including 10 vice-presidents, as part of the revamping process.
The announcement came almost one-and-a-half months after Vijayendra — Shikaripura MLA and former chief minister BS Yediyurappa’s son — took charge as the party’s state unit chief.
While in Delhi attending the two-day BJP national office-bearer meeting, the state BJP chief was hopeful of getting clearance from high command for constituting a new team of state office-bearers.
According to the list released by the party, the 10 new vice-presidents are former ministers Murugesh Nirani, BA Basavaraj (Byrathi), Haratalu Halappa, Narasimha Nayak (Raju Gowda), MLA Anil Benake, N Mahesh, Roopali Santosh Naik, Dr Basavaraj Kelagar, Malavika Avinash, and M Rajendra.
State general secretaries are former minister V Sunil Kumar and former MLAs P Rajeev, NS Nandeesh Reddy, and J Preetham Gowda.
The party appointed Shailendra Beldale, DS Arun, Basavaraj Mattimod, C Muniraju, Vinay Bidare, Captain Brijesh Chowta, Dr Sharan Tallikeri, Lalitha Anapur, Dr Lakshmi Ashwin Gowda and Ambika Hulinaykar as party secretaries.
Subbanarasimha will be the state BJP treasurer, C Manjula the Mahila Morcha president, and Dheeraj Muniraj the Yuva Morcha president.
The central leadership of the BJP seems to have given BY Vijayendra a free hand to pick his line-up of office bearers – many of them former Chief Minister and Lingayat strongman BS Yediyurappa loyalists in the party. The appointments have come at a time several leaders including the likes of MLA Basanagouda Patil Yatnal have been publicly dissenting over Vijayendra’s appointment as State chief of BJP.
The BJP held a two-day national office-bearer meeting in their Delhi headquarters on 22 and 23 December, which was attended by all state unit chiefs of the party. BY Vijayendra too participated in the meeting.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah, on Saturday, attended the BJP’s national office-bearers meeting and interacted with the party leaders.
Shah reached the BJP headquarters in Delhi in the afternoon on the second and last day of the meeting. BJP chief JP Nadda was present at the meeting.
On Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed a closed-door meeting of the BJP’s national office-bearers as the party took stock of its organisational preparedness and chalked out upcoming programmes for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
(With PTI inputs)
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