BJP sets up executive committee; Amit Shah continues as president

New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party, on Wednesday, constituted its executive committee with Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the leader of the party.

The communication reads that Home Minister Amit Shah will continue to hold the post of party’s National President.

While Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will be the party’s deputy leader in the lower house, Railway and Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal will be Singh’s counterpart in Rajya Sabha.

Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment and party’s Dalit face Thawar Chand Gehlot will lead the party in Rajya Sabha. His appointment is significant as the BJP has signalled that it is placing Dalit leaders at key positions. Earlier BJP stalwart Arun Jaitley held this position.

Prahlad Joshi will be the chief whip of the government while MoS Parliamentary Affairs Arjun Meghwal gets the deputy chief whip in Lok Sabha and MoS External Affairs V Muraleedharan will be deputy chief whip in Rajya Sabha.

The post of Treasurer is given to party MP from North Mumbai Gopal Shetty.

The party has also named some special invitees in both the houses of the parliament. While Nitin Gadkari, Smriti Irani, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Arjun Munda, Narendra Singh Tomar and Jual Oram are special invitees in Lok Sabha, J P Nadda, O P Mathur, Nirmala Sitharaman, Dharmendra Pradhan and Prakash Javadekar will be special invitees in the upper house.