Varun Gandhi dropped from Amit Shah's team

Anointed formally a week ago, BJP President, Amit Shah today constituted his new team dropping Varun Gandhi and inducting former Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa and new RSS face Ram Madhav.
A mix of youth and experience, the new team includes 11 Vice Presidents, eight General Secretaries and 14 Secretaries, besides 10 party Spokespersons, five of them new.
A significant part of today's exercise was the dropping of Varun Gandhi, Lok Sabha member from Sultanpur. This comes days after his mother and Union Minister Maneka Gandhi pitched for his projection as the party's Chief Ministerial candidate in Uttar Pradesh.

Sources said the decision was conveyed to Varun a few days ago with a hint that he would be free to campaign in Uttar Pradesh, where the party is hoping to form its own government in the next assembly elections due in May 2017.
Also he has not included in the new team because his mother is already part of the Modi Cabinet, sources said.
Shah has retained General Secretaries J P Nadda, Rajiv Pratap Rudy and Murlidhar Rao. Ramlal will continue as General Secretary (Organisation).

The four new General Secretaries are Ram Madhav, the RSS face who was sent to the party recently, outgoing BJP Mahila Morcha chief Saroj Pandey, Lok Sabha MP from Agra Ram Shankar Katheriya and Rajya Sabha MP from Rajasthan Bhupendra Yadav.

Yeddyurappa, who returned to the party just before the Lok Sabha polls after he was earlier forced to quit as chief minister following corruption charges, is among the 11 Vice Presidents in Shah's new team. Former Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi has been retained as Vice President.
"The new team reflects a mix of youth vigour and experience, with representation to regions and social classes," said party Spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi.
He said the new team will act as a bridge between the Narendra Modi dispensation and the people as it will focus on conveying the message of the work done by the government.