According to sources, Shah could go in for a reshuffle of his team after the Budget session of the Parliament gets over on April 12.
The BJP headquarters at Ashoka Road here wears a deserted look again. At least three active members of party chief Amit Shah have shifted to Lucknow to become ministers in Yogi Adityanath's cabinet.
According to sources, Shah could go in for a reshuffle of his team after the Budget session of the Parliament gets over on April 12.
Three national secretaries of the party — Siddharth Nath Singh, Shrikant Sharma and Mahendra Singh — have been made ministers in Uttar Pradesh (UP). While Singh was party in-charge of Andhra Pradesh, Shrikant was having charge of Himachal Pradesh and Singh Assam. Dinesh Sharma, who was a vice-president and in-charge of Gujarat, is now deputy chief minister in UP.
Both Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh are slated to go to polls this year-end. Sources said the party was considering to send Health Minister JP Nadda as BJP president in Himachal Pradesh. Sharma was also heading the media cell in the party office. The other deputy chief minister — Keshav Prasad Maurya —was BJP's UP state president, a post which would also fall vacant.
Meanwhile, the new Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat was Jharkhand in-charge.
The victory in Uttar Pradesh has further strengthened Shah's position as a master strategist. He has preferred to work with a smaller team, and after getting re-elected in January 2016, continued to work with his old team, barring some appointments as heads of morchas. Even as there was speculation that he would go in for filling vacancies in the team, Shah refrained from any expansion. The BJP had only eight vice-presidents, against a strength of 13 as per the party constitution, seven general secretaries against the permitted nine and 14 secretaries against a slot for 16. With members of his team moving to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's council of ministers, Shah's team had shrunk.
There is also speculation that Modi may go in for a rejig in the wake of Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar moving to Goa as Chief Minister. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has been given additional charge of Defence ministry. If Nadda moves to Himachal Pradesh, it would create another vacancy in the Cabinet.
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