Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah leaves after paying his respects at the historical Ram Tirath Temple, about 12km from Amritsar yesterday. Shah visited the Punjab city to attend the BJP ‘Active Workers’ conference.
IANS/New Delhi
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet formation has left his party depleted of leaders to take charge of crucial positions.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah has been unable to fill positions after many of the office bearers of the party were appointed ministers last November.
“More than five months after the reshuffle, we are still facing vacancies. It has resulted in serious organisational crisis in the party,” a BJP source said, not wishing to be identified.
A party spokesman refused to comment on the matter, saying it was the prerogative of the party president to fill positions as and when he desires.
Shah had announced his team in July last year after taking over as the party president. His team had 11 vice presidents, eight general secretaries (including one general secretary) and 14 secretaries.
Of the 11 vice presidents, four left. Bandaru Dattatreya was made minister of state for labour and employment and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi given minority affairs. Raghuvar Das became chief minister of Jharkhand and Kiran Maheshwari was inducted into Vasundhara Raje’s government in Rajasthan as cabinet minister of public health and water resources.
Out of eight general secretaries, three were assigned responsibilities as ministers in the Modi government. J P Nadda was made the health minister, Rajiv Pratap Rudy was appointed minister of state for skill and entrepreneurship and Ramshankar Katheria was given responsibility as minister of state for human resource development.
Adding to the earlier vacancies, six seats of vice presidents, five of general secretaries and one post of secretary are now lying vacant in the party.
At present there are 64 ministers in the Modi cabinet, including 26 of cabinet rank, 13 ministers of state (independent charge) and 25 ministers of state.
A party official who did not want to be named said that a few months back, Shah had requested Modi to allocate organisational work to some of the BJP leaders. But no such decision was taken.
According to the party constitution, no post can remain vacant for more than six months. The time limit may be breached soon, says the official.
With many “efficient and experienced” party officials getting ministerial berths, the party president is finding it hard to fill positions, the official said. That was the reason why in a rare move Ram Madhav, a Rashtriyaswayam Sevak Sangh leader, was brought in as general secretary of the party organisation, he added.
