The National Council of the Bharatiya Janata Party meeting here on Thursday amended the party constitution to increase the strength of its National Executive Committee and national office-bearers basically to include 33 per cent women in these bodies.
The Executive Committee will have 120 members instead of 80. The new Executive Committee to be constituted by party president Nitin Gadkari will include 40 women members. Women had been given representation by the former president, Rajnath Singh, in whose tenure the party constitution was amended to give women 33 per cent representation in almost all party forums, except the Parliamentary Board and the Central Election Committee.
The strength of national office-bearers was on Thursday raised to 39 from 27. In the new list of office-bearers there will be at least 13 women members.
New faces
Significantly, the number of general secretaries at the national level has been increased to 10: nine plus the general secretary for organisation. The new list of office-bearers would include some new faces, including women.
Earlier, there was talk in the party of amending the party constitution to give party presidents at the national and State levels a five-year term instead of the current three or to allow two consecutive three-year tenures. But it seems Mr. Gadkari was not in favour of doing this immediately as it would seem he was lengthening his own tenure.
