Varun Gandhi had recently posted tweets condemning the Lakhimpur Kheri violence, and had criticised the BJP government, especially in Uttar Pradesh.
BJP Lok Sabha MP Varun Gandhi and his mother and former Union minister Maneka Gandhi have not found a place in the 80-member national executive list announced by party national president JP Nadda on Thursday.
Varun had posted tweets condemning the Lakhimpur Kheri violence, in which farmers and a journalist died, and had criticised the BJP government, especially in Uttar Pradesh. Party sources say this perhaps has not gone down well with the BJP’s top leadership.
The 80-member national executive list has names ranging from PM Narendra Modi to veterans LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi.
Former law minister Subramanian Swamy, who is often critical of BJP government’s policies, is another prominent exclusion from the list. Former Lok Sabha MP Vinay Katiyar and former Union minister SS Ahluwalia are among those who have been dropped from the list.
Apart from the 80 regular members, the executive will have 50 special invitees and 179 permanent invitees.
New members, include Jyotiraditya Scindia, who joined the BJP from Congress in 2019 and was made Union aviation minister in the recent cabinet reshuffle, railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and women and child development minister Smriti Irani.
Interestingly, a few members from West Bengal have been included in the national executive, including actor-turned-politician Mithun Chakraborty, former Union minister Dinesh Trivedi, Anirban Ganguly and Swapan Dasgupta. Another, Rajib Banerjee, who joined the BJP just before West Bengal assembly polls early this year and has recently congratulated Mamata Banerjee for her Bhabanipur win, has hinted at returning to the TMC’s fold.
Tamil actor Kushboo Sundar, who join BJP in October 2020, is also on the list.
The first meeting of the new national executive is slated to take place in Delhi on November 7, which will be a first under the leadership of Nadda, who took over from Amit Shah as the BJP national president in 2020.
