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Declaring that factionalism and indiscipline will not be tolerated, new Bharatiya Janata Party president M Venkaiah Naidu on Thursday announced a 'winning' 72-member national executive including former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Rajnath Singh and former Union ministers Arun Jaitley and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi as general secretaries, ahead of the coming assembly elections.
The new team, which he described as a 'combination of experience, dynamism and youth', includes Gopinath Munde, former Maharashtra deputy chief minister, as vice-president and Ramdas Agarwal as the new treasurer.
Addressing his maiden press conference after assuming the party's leadership, Naidu said Jaitley would be the party's spokesman to be assisted by Sunil Shastri and Naqvi.
Asserting that the emphasis would be on 'teamwork', Naidu said, "Hereafter the party will not be president-centric. We will all work together. I will preside and the committee will decide on the issues."
"Factionalism, groupism or indiscipline shall not be tolerated otherwise the party will have to pay the price," he said.
"I want to make it clear that Atal Bihari Vajpayee is the tallest leader in the nation today... he is the leader of the nation, NDA, BJP...he is leader to me, he is leader to Advani also," Naidu said.
Naidu said though some senior leaders of the party had requested the prime minster to 'spare' Advani for party work to revitalise BJP, Vajpayee had categorically ruled it out saying: "I cannot spare his (Advani) services from the government, his presence in the government is very much essential."
Naidu, who took over from Jana Krishnamurthy, who has been inducted into the Cabinet in the recent reshuffle, also announced the appointment of G Krishan Reddy as the new president of the party's youth wing Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, while his predecessor and Vidisha Member of Parliament Shivraj Singh Chauhan has been made a secretary.
Delhi, which goes to polls next year, finds representation among the office-bearers with former health minister Harshavardhan as vice-president and Anita Arya, MP as general secretary.
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