Maneka, Varun, Swamy out; Scindia, Smriti inducted into BJP national executive

Lok Sabha members Maneka Gandhi and her son, Varun Gandhi, were dropped from the Bharatiya Janata Party’s national executive, while Union Ministers Smriti Irani and Jyotiraditya Scindia were among those inducted into the 80-member decision-making body that was announced on Thursday.

The list was announced hours after Mr. Gandhi said via a tweet on Thursday morning that the video of the Lakhimpur Kheri incident, where a group of farmers was on Sunday allegedlymowed down by cars in Union Minister of State Ajay Kumar Mishra’s convoy, was “crystal clear”.

“…Protestors cannot be silenced through murder. There has to be accountability for the innocent blood of farmers that has been spilled and justice must be delivered before a message of arrogance and cruelty enters the minds of every farmer…” Mr. Gandhi tweeted.

On Monday, Mr. Gandhi had written to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath seeking action in the matter.

BJP president Jagat Prasad Nadda appointed the 80 members, which included Prime Minister Narendra Modi; senior leaders L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi; and former party presidents and current Union Ministers Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari.

In a statement, the party said 50 special invitees and 179 permanent invitees, including Chief Ministers, Deputy Chief Ministers, national spokespersons, presidents of national wings and state unit leadership, would also be a part of the national executive committee.

Meeting on Nov. 7?

Since Mr. Nadda took over as party president in January 2020, this was the first appointment of the national executive by him. According to sources, a meeting of the national executive, which was last held in 2019 during Mr. Shah’s tenure as party president, could be held on November 7.

Among the national executive members dropped by Mr. Nadda are former Union Ministers Dr. Mahesh Sharma, Vijay Goel and Dr. C.P. Thakur; current Union Ministers Rao Inderjit Singh, Ashwani Kumar Choubey and Prahlad Singh Patel; Rajya Sabha member Subramanian Swamy.

Some new entrants to the party have been included in the national executive, including Mr. Scindia and Dinesh Trivedi, a former Trinamool Congress MP who joined the BJP in the run-up to the West Bengal Assembly elections earlier this year. Prominent BJP campaigners and candidates in the Bengal polls like actor Mithun Chakraborty and MP Swapan Dasgupta have also been included in the national executive.

Union Ministers G.Kishan Reddy, Ashwini Vaishnaw, Hardeep Singh Puri, V. Muraleedharan, Bhupender Yadav, Anurag Thakur, Meenakshi Lekhi and S. Jaishankar are among those in the national executive.