Jaipur: In its first major organisational rejig since Nitin Nabin took over as the national president of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in January, the party on Monday (August 17) announced several national office bearers for various positions in the organisation, including the powerful posts of national general secretaries.An analysis of the names of national vice presidents and national general secretaries appointed by the party on Monday shows that the list is dominated by upper-castes, with leaders from backward classes and marginalised communities being just a footnote.In the list of 13 national vice presidents announced by the BJP, only two names – Rekha Verma, a two-time former MP from the Dhaurahra Lok Sabha constituency in Uttar Pradesh, and incumbent Rajya Sabha MP from Karnataka M. Nagaraja are from Other Backward Castes (OBC).Lal Singh Arya who till now was serving as the national president of the BJP Scheduled Caste (SC) Morcha is the lone Dalit in the list, while former Union minister of state Bharti Pravin Pawar is from the Scheduled Tribe (ST).After Arya’s appointment as a national vice president, Shivesh Kumar Ram, a former MLA from Bihar has been appointed as the new president of the party’s SC Morcha.Former Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje, who was overlooked for the top post in the state after the BJP’s victory in the 2023 assembly elections – the saffron party named first-time MLA Bhajan Lal Sharma as the chief minister – retains her post as the BJP’s national vice president. Former Uttarakhand chief minister Tirath Singh Rawat has also been named as a party vice president.Manpreet Singh Badal is the lone Sikh leader in the list, while professor Tariq Mansoor, a former vice chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) and incumbent member of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council is the only Muslim name in the BJP’s national vice presidents.Ram Madhav, who once the played an important role as the BJP’s general secretary in-charge of Jammu and Kashmir, before being removed from the post of national general secretary in September 2020, has now made a comeback as a national vice president of the party. Former Biju Janata Dal (BJD) leader Baijayant Jay Panda retains his post of national vice president.Six of eight national general secretaries from upper-castesThe saffron party has also relied on upper-caste leaders for the important post of national general secretary, with six of the eight names announced on Monday being from upper-castes.The national general secretaries play a significant role in the party’s functioning, including those of overseeing its affairs in various states as in-charge.Incumbent Haryana in-charge and Rajya Sabha MP Satish Poonia, a Jat leader from Rajasthan, is the only OBC name in the list of national general secretaries announced on Monday. Notably, while Jats from Rajasthan come under the OBC category, Jats from some other states including Haryana and Uttar Pradesh don’t come under the OBC category. Later on Tuesday (August 18), the BJP also made Poonia the in-charge of poll-bound Punjab.Gajendra Patel, BJP Lok Sabha MP from Madhya Pradesh’s Khargone is the only Scheduled Tribe (ST) leader named as national general secretary on Monday.The other national general secretaries announced on Monday include former Tripura chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb and Rajya Sabha MP Vinod Tawde.Former Union minister Smriti Irani has also made a comeback after being appointed as a national general secretary. Irani was not seen active in politics ever since the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, which she lost from the Amethi constituency from where the Congress’s Kishori Lal Sharma emerged victorious after defeating her.Some of the other upper-caste leaders who have been appointed as national general secretaries include Sunil Bansal, Harish Dwivedi and Sanjay Bhatia. Tawde and Bansal are the only two leaders who have been retained as national general secretaries while the rest are new faces. On Tuesday, Tawde was named as the BJP in-charge for Uttar Pradesh, where assembly elections are to be held early next year. Jagdish Ishwarbhai Patel, who was appointed a national secretary on Monday, has been named as the co-in-charge of UP.Interestingly, while the BJP often takes jibes at opposition parties by accusing them of practicing “dynastic politics”, the party on Monday appointed Union minister Piyush Goyal as its treasurer. Notably, Goyal’s father Ved Prakash Goyal also held the post of the party treasurer for more than two decades and was a former Union minister.The fact that Piyush Goyal is the incumbent Union commerce minister who has now been given the important post of the party treasurer, hints towards the possibility that he may be shifted to some other ministry or removed as a Union minister in the cabinet reshuffle expected soon.National president Nitin Nabin has retained B.L. Santhosh as the party’s national general secretary (organisation), a post which serves as a bridge between the BJP and its ideological fountainhead, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).Santhosh, who had held the post even during the tenure of former national president J.P. Nadda, will also have two joint national general secretaries (organisation) in Shivprakash and Saudan Singh.The party also named 16 national secretaries on Monday, the notable among them being former Kerala BJP president K. Surendran and Anil Antony, the son of Congress leader and former Union minister A.K. Antony.Only four names from minority communitiesThe list of office bearers announced by BJP has only four names from minority communities including Badal and Mansoor (national vice presidents), Antony (national secretary) and Kunwar Basit Ali, who has been named as the president of the BJP Minority Morcha.Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) turncoat and Rajya Sabha MP Sandeep Pathak has also been named as a national secretary along with former Uttar Pradesh MLA from Chauri Chaura constituency, Sangeeta Yadav.Among other appointments, Lok Sabha MP Sambit Patra has been appointed as the party’s north east coordinator and Tarun Chugh as office in-charge. Chugh who is also an upper-caste leader, was also named as the party’s in-charge for Gujarat on Tuesday.One of the most significant changes made in the latest list is replacing Amit Malviya as the BJP’s social media convener with Deepak Mhaskey.During his tenure as the BJP’s IT cell head, Malviya was accused by opposition parties and activists of promoting fabricated narratives and engaging in trolling people.Along with Mhaskey as the new IT cell head, the BJP has also appointed four social media co-conveners. Notably, Arun Yadav, one of the new appointees, was earlier the party’s Haryana IT cell in-charge. Yadav was removed from his earlier post in July 2022 for an old tweet of his that was allegedly against Islam.The BJP had taken the step amidst the furore over the controversial statements of the party’s then national spokesperson Nupur Sharma about Prophet Muhammad.In other appointments, BJP has appointed Hemang Joshi, a 35-year-old Lok Sabha MP from Gujarat’s Vadodara as the president of its youth wing, the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha. Joshi has replaced Bangalore South MP Tejasvi Surya, who held the post till now.The appointment of Joshi could not be touted as the party’s push towards younger office bearers, as Surya, his predecessor is also of the same age and thirties are no longer considered as the benchmark for younger politicians.Several incumbent Lok Sabha MPs including Sanjana Jatav, Pushpendra Saroj, Priya Saroj and Shambhavi Choudhary are presently in their 20s.