Amit Shah has just around 6% women in what is one of the top panels of the party, eight years after its former chief Rajnath Singh advocated 33% reservation in the organisation

Human Resource Development minister Smriti Irani's name was conspicuous by its absence when BJP president Amit Shah announced the party's new national executive on Thursday.

In fact, there are just around six per cent women in what is one of the top panels of the party, eight years after former party president Rajnath Singh advocated 33 per cent reservation in the organisation. Minority affairs minister Najma Heptullah, Mathura MP Hema Malini, Mumbai spokesperson Shaina N C and lawyer Pinki Anand are among those dropped from the national executive.

With most union ministers finding a place in the national executive, the exclusion of Irani, the youngest minister in the Union Cabinet, came as a surprise. Irani, a former mahila morcha chief, and later a party vice-president had been a member of the national executive before she became a minister. As reported by dna earlier, there were indications that RSS has not been happy with the HRD minister's performance. The Sangh, for which education has been an area of focus, is disappointed over the controversies and "snail's pace" of movement, sources said.

Shah is expected to announce the list of party office-bearers soon, filling vacancies created after three general secretaries and three vice-presidents became ministers in the Modi government. So far, the movement has been from the party to the government. The office-bearers and heads of various cells are also members of the national executive, which is meeting in Bangalore in the first week of April.

The list, with Shah's stamp on it, has been pruned from 223 to 178 – 111 national executive members, 40 special invitees (including all of BJP's eight chief ministers), and 27 permanent members. The panel includes Prime Minister Narendra Modi, former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and senior ministers Arun Jaitley, Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj, Venkaiah Naidu and Nitin Gadkari. Recent entrants into the party like union ministers Suresh Prabhu, Rao Inderjeet Singh, VK Singh and Birendra Singh.

Besides the ministers, party veterans like LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Yashwant Sinha, SS Ahluwalia, CP Thakur, O Rajapgopal and VK Malhotra figure on the list. Shah has also brought in Subramanian Swami, who had merged his Janata Party into the BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.

Sultanpur MP Varun Gandhi, who was dropped as general secretary from Shah's team last year, has been included in the national executive. His mother and union minister Maneka Gandhi is among the 11 women in the list.

The party's hindutva hardliner MPs from Uttar Pradesh – Yogi Adityanath and Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti – whose remarks have sparked off a political furore have also been accommodated.

Former MP from Amritsar and cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu, Patna Sahib MP and actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha, popular singer from West Bengal Babul Supriyo, actor Kirron Kher and former editor of RSS mouthpiece 'Organiser' Sheshadri Chari have also been included in the panel.
(DNA)