Former Congress leaders Capt Amarinder Singh, Sunil Jakhar, Rana Gurmit Singh Sodhi, and Fatehjang Singh Bajwa are among the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) 17-member core committee, reconstituted by the state BJP president Ashwani Sharma.
The other members of the core committee are Ashwani Sharma, Union Minister Som Parkash, former MP Avinash Rai Khanna, Sarabjit Singh Virk, former Minister Manoranjan Kalia, Rajinder Bhandari, Rajinder Mohan Singh Chhina, Jaswinder Dhillon, former Union Minister Vijay Sampla, Manthri Srinivasullu, Shwait Malik, former Minister Tikshan Sud, and Subhash Sharma.
The party’s national vice-president Saudan Singh, national general secretary Tarun Chugh, parliamentary board member Iqbal Singh Lalpura, state in-charge Vijay Rupani, state co-in-charge Narender Raina, and all the state general secretaries will be special invitees in the core committee.
The state BJP also formed a nine-member finance committee comprising Manoranjan Kalia, Jakhar, Sud, Arvind Khanna, Sarabjeet Singh Makkar, Saroop Chand Singla, Praveen Bansal, Sanjeev Khanna, and Gurdev Sharma.
The formation of BJP’s core group came days after the party announced the state's new office-bearers, including around a dozen prominent leaders who quit Congress to join the saffron brigade. Capt Amarinder’s daughter Jai Inder Kaur, Raj Kumar Verka, Kewal Singh Dhillon, Fatehjang Singh Bajwa, and Arvind Khanna were among the 11 state vice-presidents.
Another former Congress leader Gurpreet Singh Kangar, who had also joined the BJP, was appointed as one of the state general secretaries — a post considered to be most important after the state BJP chief.