Sunil Bansal named BJP’s general secretary

Signalling its intent to sharpen the party’s strategy and enhance its reach in states where it has not been in power so far, the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday appointed one of its chief strategists, Sunil Bansal as the national general secretary.

Bansal who was the general secretary (organisation) in Uttar Pradesh (UP), will be in charge of Telangana, Odisha and West Bengal (WB), the three states which the party has set its sights on. While it emerged as the second largest party in WB, in Odisha its presence is still nascent. BJP is also aggressively preparing for the 2023 assembly polls in Telangana.

The party is pushing to increase its vote share and seat share in the eastern and the southern states to bolster its performance in the 2024 Lok Sabha election. The five southern states together have 129 seats while WB and Odisha together have 63.

The appointment made by party president JP Nadda comes a day after the BJP lost power in Bihar, where it ran a coalition government with the JDU.

Bansal played a key role in scripting the party’s success in UP in the previous two assembly polls. Counted as one of the chief strategists of the BJP, his role during the 2014 general election propelled him to the national scene.

Having cut his teeth in politics in the RSS’s student body, the Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad, Bansal will take charge of West Bengal from Kailash Vijayvargiya, who is also a national general secretary . National general secretaries Tarun Chugh and D Purandehwari were incharge of Telangana and Odisha.

“He was handpicked by Amit Shah and brought from Rajasthan to Uttar Pradesh to prepare for the 2014 polls. He is sharp, he understands the intricacies of caste, he is good at identifying the weaknesses in a particular constituency and is known to deliver results. His appointment is a recognition of his work in UP in the past eight years,” said a BJP functionary, in Uttar Pradesh, who asked not to be named.

A complete RSS man, Bansal prefers to remain low key, shies away from publicity, preferring a backroom role.

The BJP has also appointed Dharampal as the general secretary (organisation) in UP. Karamveer has been appointed as the general secretary (organisation) in Jharkhand, he was the joint general secretary (organisation) in Uttar Pradesh.

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