BJP president JP Nadda on Saturday appointed Vishnu Datt Sharma as the party's Madhya Pradesh unit chief in place of Rakesh Singh. Nadda also appointed Dal Bahadur Chauhan and K Surendran as new presidents of the party's Sikkim and Kerala units respectively.
Sharma,49, an MP from Khajuraho has replaced incumbent Singh, who is also a parliamentarian from Jabalpur.
BJP national general secretary Arun Singh made this announcement in an official communiqué on behalf of the party president.
Rakesh Singh is believed to be a trusted lieutenant of Union Home Minister and former BJP chief Amit Shah.
Speculations were rife in the state BJP that Rakesh Singh might get another term. He had last month organised a grand pro-Citizenship (Amendment) Act rally in his constituency, which was attended by Shah. However, the BJP leadership picked Sharma for the post, a move that has come as a surprise to many.
Sharma, who is popularly known as VD, is a staunch follower of the RSS. He is credited with strengthening the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the students' wing of the RSS, in Madhya Pradesh in 1990s.
Sharma, who was the national general secretary of the ABVP, had joined the BJP in 2013.
With Sharma's appointment, the BJP leadership has given yet another key post to a Brahmin leader in Madhya Pradesh after Gopal Bhargava, who is the Leader of Opposition in the state assembly
The post of Kerala BJP president had become vacant after its former chief Sreedharan Pillai was appointed as the Governor of Mizoram in October 2019.
K Surendran,50, a polarizing figure , was already widely tipped as one of the frontrunners for the post.
A native of Kozhikode district, Surendran's stature in the party and among the public rose as he became the aggressive face of Sabarimala protests that rocked the state, following the 2018 Supreme Court verdict which allowed women of all ages to enter the hilltop shrine.
Recently, he had reportedly said that anti-CAA protest in Kerala resembles the Malabar rebellion (armed uprising against British in 1921 in northern Kerala), and also purportedly maintained that a particular community will be attacked during the protests.
As for Sikkim, Chauhan, was appointed as the BJP's State unit president for a second consecutive term. Chauhan's tenure as the BJP's Sikkim unit president will be till 2023.
Chauhan said that he will soon announce the new state executive committee in consultation with the party's top brass.
The BJP emerged as a major political force in Sikkim during Chauhan's first term as the state unit chief, following the defection of 10 SDF MLAs to the party and win in two assembly bypolls.