Gadkari announces new 121 members BJP team

New Delhi, Mar 16 (ANI): Ending a three-month long suspense, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Nitin Gadkari announced the party's new team of office bearers on Tuesday, which consists of 121 members, including 13 Vice-Presidents, 10 General Secretaries, 15 Secretaries and one treasurer.

Shanta Kumar, Kalraj Mishra, Vinay Katiyar, Bhagatsingh Koshiyari, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Karuna Shukla, Najma Heptullah, Hema Malini, Bijoya Chakravarti, Purushottam Rupala and Kiran Ghai have been made party's Vice Presidents.

Ananth Kumar, Thavarchand Gehlot, Vasundhara Raje, Vijay Goyal, Arjun Munda, Ravishankar Prasad, Dharmendra Pradhan, Narendrasingh Tomar, Jagat Prakash Nadda and Ram Lal have been made General Secretaries.

Varun Gandhi, Santosh Gangwar, Smriti Irani, Saroj Pande, Kiran Maheshwari, Tapir Gao, Navjot Singh Siddhu, Ashok Pradhan, Muralidhar Rao, Dr. Kirit Somaiyya, Dr. Laxman, Captain Abhimanyu, Arati Mehra, Bhupendra Yadav and Vani Tripathi have been made the Secretaries of the party.

V. Satish and Saudan Singh have been appointed the Joint General Secretary of the party.

Stalwarts like leader of opposition Arun Jaitley and Gopinath Munde could not retain the position of General Secretaries in Gadkari's new team.

Piyush Goyal will be the new treasurer of BJP.

Powerful leaders like Balbir Punj and Prabhat Jha could not find a berth this time.

Gadkari has kept the promise of 33 percent women representation by inducting 13 women members among the 40 office bearers, he has also made sure that Muslims are given key positions, induction of Najma Heptullah as Vice President and Shah Nawaz Hussain as spokesperson is an indication of his plan.

Gadkari soon after being elevated to the post of BJP President had said that he wanted to bring some changes in the saffron brigade eyeing upon infusing new spirit in the party.

The names of the members of the Central Election Committee, Morcha Presidents and Conveners of different cells besides some other functionaries would be announced later (ANI)