Gadkari, Chouhan dropped from BJP parliamentary board; Yediyurappa, Sonowal among 6 new entrants

The BJP on Wednesday dropped Union Minister Nitin Gadkari and Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan from its parliamentary board and brought in six new faces including B S Yediyurappa and Iqbal Singh Lalpura.

Union Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, K Laxman, Sudha Sadav and Satyanarayan Jatiya are the other new members of the BJP’s apex organisational body — an attempt by the party to make the parliamentary board more socially and regionally representative.

Lalpura will be the first Sikh to have a seat in the BJP parliamentary board as a person from a minority community.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union ministers Amit Shah and Rajnath Singh and BJP president J P Nadda are among its members.

The party also rejigged its Central Election Committee and included former Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, Union Minister Bhupender Yadav, Om Mathur and its women wing chief Vanathi Srinivasan.

Former Union minister Shahnawaz Hussain and Jual Oram have been dropped from the CEC, whose members also include all parliamentary board members.