Amit Shah appoints in-charges for 17 states with eye on 2019 Lok Sabha polls; Prakash Javadekar drafted for Rajasthan

New Delhi: BJP president Amit Shah Wednesday appointed the party’s in-charges for the Lok Sabha polls for 17 states, drafting in Union minister Prakash Javadekar for steering the campaign in Rajasthan and Thawarchand Gehlot, another minister, for Uttarakhand. Govardhan Jhadapia, a Gujarat leader, Dushyant Gautam, who is a party vice president, and Narottam Mishra, who is from Madhya Pradesh, will be in-charge of Uttar Pradesh, a politically crucial state, where the BJP is likely to face a tough challenge from a prospective alliance of the SP and the BSP. BJP general secretaries Bhupender Yadav and Anil Jain have been assigned Bihar and Chhattisgarh respectively, according to a statement. Rajya Sabha member V Muraleedharan and party secretary Deodhar Rao will be in-charge of Andhra Pradesh. Mahendra Singh and OP Mathur will be in-charge of Assam and Gujarat respectively, the statement said. The BJP has also appointed in-charges and co-incharges for several other states, including Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Nagaland, Punjab, Telangana and Sikkim among others.