BJP rejigs tiol executive; Smriti, jma left out

New Delhi, March 12:  BJP president Amit Shah on Thursday reconstituted the party's tiol executive, but union ministers Smriti Irani and jma Heptulla did not find a place in it. Prime Minister rendra Modi and senior party leader L.K. Advani were among the 111 members of the tiol executive. There are 27 permanent invitees, including chief ministers and deputy chief ministers of states where the Bharatiya Jata Party is in power. Apart from 40 special invitees, all leaders of the party in state assemblies and councils and state presidents will also be invitees to the tiol executive. The new tiol executive is expected to hold its first meeting next month in Bengaluru. Among other prominent BJP faces who do not figure in the tiol executive were actor Hema Malini and Shai N.C, a young leader of the party in Maharashtra.

Kiran Bedi, the BJP's chief ministerial candidate in Delhi, who lost the election, was also not in the tiol executive. While many leaders from the previous executive were retained, there were several new faces. Except for Irani and Heptulla, most cabinet ministers were included in the new tiol executive. They include Rajth Singh, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, M. Venkaiah idu, Nitin Gadkari, Anth Kumar, Thaawar Chand Gehlot, Maneka Gandhi, Jagat Prakash dda, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Kalraj Mishra, rendra Singh Tomar, Radha Mohan Singh, Jual Oram, Suresh Prabhu and Harsh Vardhan.

Several ministers of state were also included, while ministers of state, some with independent charge, were also in the tiol executive. They include Bandaru Dattatreya, Dharmendra Pradhan, Rajeev Pratap Rudy, Prakash Javadekar, V.K. Singh, Piyush Goyal, Kiren Rijiju, Mahesh Sharma and Nirmala Sitharaman.

Others prominent faces in the list were Yashwant Sinha, Viy Katiyar, C.P. Thakur, S.S. Ahluwalia, Vijay Kumar Malhotra, Varun Gandhi, Satpal Maharaj, Captain Abhimanyu, O. Rajagopal, Subramanian Swamy and vjot Singh Sidhu. Irani, who is apparently the youngest cabinet minister, was considered a rising star in the BJP but her not being included in the tiol executive is being seen in political circles as a sign of her falling stock in the party. Party veterans in the tiol executive include Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Murli Manohar Joshi apart from Advani. (ians)