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Thakre reshuffles his men and portfolios

Bharatiya Janata Party president Shashikant 'Kushabhau' Thakre on Saturday put general secretary K N Govindacharya in charge of Rajasthan.

K P Mishra will take over the charge of Bihar, which Govindacharya was looking after till now. A vice-president of the party, Mishra has been given additional charge of West Bengal.

The appointments are part of new work allocation for central office-bearers that Thakre announced soon after he took over.

General secretary M Venkaiah Naidu, till now in charge of Tamil Nadu, has been asked to look after Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, both of which are due to have assembly elections in November.

Naidu will also co-ordinate between the party and the government and look after the election as well as the parliamentary board.

Vice-president Bangaru Laxman will look after the BJP's affairs in Tamil Nadu.

Jagdish Prasad Mathur has been brought back as the party's spokesman. He will also look after the media and the party workers' grievance-redressal cell.

Krishen Lal Sharma and Naidu will also continue to be spokesmen.

Vice-president K Jana Krishnamurthy will look after the party headquarters and 'think tank.'

Former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Sunderlal Patwa has been made a vice-president. He will be in charge of Uttar Pradesh.

Thakre also put general secretary Narendra Modi in charge of Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Jammu & Kashmir, Haryana and Chandigarh.

The BJP Yuva Morcha's Sanghapriya Gautam will be in charge of Maharashtra and Goa.

BJP Scheduled Castes Morcha office-bearer Sumitra Mahajan will be in charge of Gujarat and the Mahila Morcha while Ved Prakash Goyal will be in charge of the Overseas Friends of the BJP.

Other new assignments are:

Secretaries

Padmanabh Acharya -- Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Manipur.

Rajveer Singh -- Andaman & Nicobar, Sikkim, the Kisan Morcha.

Pyarelal Khandelwal -- Assam, Orissa and the Aajeewan Sahayogi (life associate) Scheme.

Basavraj Patil -- Kerala.

Tanvir Ahmed -- the Minority Morcha.

P S Kulastge -- the Scheduled Tribes Morcha.

National executive committee member:

Bansilal Soni -- West Bengal and Tripura.

UNI

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