No Smriti, Hema, Najma? Amit Shah chops leading BJP ladies from National Executive

New Delhi: Union Ministers Smriti Irani and Najma Heptuallah and film-star-turned MP Hema Malini were today dropped from the BJP National Executive as party President Amit Shah reconstituted one of the top party panels inducting new entrants Suresh Prabhu and Birender Singh who are also ministers at the Centre.[caption id=“attachment_2150201” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  New members enter national executive. Reuters[/caption] Shah has retained all top leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and senior ministers Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley and Venkaiah Naidu as Members. Ministers VK Singh, Rao Inderjeet Singh and Subramanian Swamy were included as Members in the 178-member National Executive that is likely to meet in the first week of April in Bengaluru. Popular film singer Babul Supriyo, the rising star of BJP in West Bengal, has been made a special invitee while another film-star turned MP Kirron Kher has been retained in the same category. While Rural Development Birender Singh had quit the Congress and joined BJP before the Haryana Assembly elections late last year, Inderjeet Singh, a minister in the Manmohan Singh government, had deserted Congress to join BJP Congress before the Lok Sabha elections. The former army chief had also joined the party before the Parliamentary polls. In constituting the National Executive, Shah has named 111 members, including most of the Union ministers and prominent party leaders in the states. All state Chief Ministers, deputy Chief Ministers and those who had held these offices were among the 27 made Permanent Invitees and while 40 Special Invitees were inducted. All the eight Chief Ministers of BJP-ruled states and two deputy Chief Ministers, including that in Jammu and Kashmir where the party shares power with PDP, besides 24 former Chief Ministers and three former deputy Chief Ministers have been made permanent invitees to the executive. Among some of the other omissions in the new list include those who have become Governors or those like Jaswant Singh, who was expelled from the party. The former defence minister’s son Manvendra Singh has also been excluded from the new national executive. Among those who are part of the new national body include Union Ministers Nitin Gadkari, Ananth Kumar, Thawarchand Gehlot, Jagat P Nadda, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Kalraj Mishra, Narendra Singh Tomar, Harsh Vardhan, Bandaru Dattatreya and Radha Mohan Singh. Other prominent leaders inducted include Yashwant Sinha, Vinay Katiyar, CP Thakur, Jual Oram, SS Ahluwalia, Vijay K Malhotra, besides Hukumdev Narayan Singh, L Ganesan, Lalji Tandon, O Rajgopal, Tathagat Roy and Gulab Chand Katariya. PTI