Bharatiya Janata Party sources said party president Amit Shah decided to drop Varun Gandhi as general secretary as his mother, Maneka Gandhi, is a member of the Narendra Modi Cabinet.
Mr. Gandhi will be sent to Uttar Pradesh for organisational work. Earlier, Ms. Gandhi had pitched for her son to be projected as the Chief Ministerial candidate for Uttar Pradesh.
Former Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa, who had left the party following corruption charges but rejoined it on the eve of the Lok Sabha election, and Bandaru Dattatreya (Telangana) and Satyapal Malik (Uttar Pradesh), both Lok Sabha members, are among the 11 new vice-presidents in Mr. Shah’s team.
Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi (Uttar Pradesh), Purushattam Rupala (Gujarat), Prabhat Jha (Madhya Pradesh), Raghuwar Das (Jharkhand), Kiran Maheshwari (Rajasthan), Vinay Sahasrabudhe ((Maharashtra), Renu Devi (Bihar) and Dinesh Sharma (Uttar Pradesh) are the other vice-presidents.
There are seven women in Mr. Shah’s team, including two vice-presidents, one general secretary, two secretaries and two spokespersons. Former Minister Pramod Mahajan’s daughter Poonam has been made a secretary.