The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party reconstituted its Parliamentary Party Executive Committee, with Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh as the deputy leader of the party in the Lok Sabha and Union Finance and Defence Minister Minister Arun Jaitley as the party’s deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the new leader of the reconstituted BJP Parliamentary Party in both Houses of Parliament.
The BJP has nominated Parliamentary Affairs Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu as the government’s Chief Whip in Parliament.
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The party has also named 13 Whips in Lok Sabha and three in Rajya Sabha. Ministers of State for Parliamentary Affairs Santosh Gangwar and Prakash Javadekar will be the deputy Chief Whips in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha respectively.
Lok Sabha member from Rajasthan Arjun Ram Meghwal will be the party’s Chief Whip in the Lok Sabha while Rajya Sabha member from Punjab Avinash Rai Khanna will be the new party Chief Whip in the Upper House.
During the UPA’s reign, a post of chairperson of the Congress parliamentary party was created for party president Sonia Gandhi who did not want to be the Prime Minister.
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PTI adds:
The BJP has also named Ganesh Singh, a member from Madhya Pradesh, as party Secretary in the Lok Sabha and Bhupendra Yadav from Rajasthan in the Rajya Sabha.
P.C. Mohan from Karnataka is the new treasurer of BJP Parliamentary Party.
The 13 whips named by BJP in the Lok Sabha are: Suresh Angadi (Karnataka), Sanjay Dhotre (Maharashtra), Sanjay Jaiswal (Bihar), Sunil Singh (Jharkhand), Ratan Lal Katariya (Haryana), Parvesh Verma (Delhi), Kirit Solanki (Gujarat), Rakesh Singh (Madhya Pradesh), Kamla Patle (Chhattisgarh), Om Birla (Rajasthan), Mahendra Pandey, Ramshankar Karhuriya and Pankaj Choudhary (all Uttar Pradesh).
The three party whips in the Rajya Sabha are Bimla Kashyap Sood (Himachal Pradesh), Mansukh L Mandaviya (Gujarat) and Narayanlal Panchariya (Rajasthan).