New state presidents for Rajasthan, Bihar, Delhi, Odisha, and other states were declared by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday. In Rajasthan, which will hold elections later this year, CP Joshi will take Satish Poonia’s post, while Virendra Sachdeva will lead the state team in Delhi.
In Odisha, where the BJP is trying to expand its presence, Manmohan Samal, a former minister in the Odisha government, will take on the role of state unit president. In Bihar, Sanjay Jaiswal has been replaced by Samrat Chaudhary. There were rumors of conflict amongst the state team’s leaders in Rajasthan, and the national leadership was petitioned to remove Poonia, a Jat leader and an RSS member.
There were issues between Poonia and the previous chief minister Vasundhara Raje, a party official claimed. Gulab Chand Kataria was recently selected by the party as the governor of Assam, which was seen as a victory for Raje’s supporters who had been pressing for her to be named as a contender for chief minister despite the central leadership’s insistence that the PM would be the face of the election.
The Kurmi leader Chaudhary’s appointment is part of the party’s strategy to increase its influence among Bihar’s OBC populations. The BJP is attempting to gain support from the OBC, MBC, and Dalit communities in the state after severing relations with the JD(U).
