NEW DELHI: Pilibhit MP Varun Gandhi (41), cousin of former Congress President Rahul Gandhi, his mother Maneka Gandhi (65), a former union minister and Sultanpur MP, and Rajya Sabha MP Dr Subramanian Swamy (82) have been dropped from an 80-member national executive of the Bharatiya Janata Party constituted on Thursday by its president J P Nadda.
Varun was shown the door amid suspicion that he may defect to the Congress, after his critical comment on those hailing Nathuram Godse and following his stinging letter to Yogi Adityanath on mowing down of the farmers in Lakhimpur Kheri. Varun had described the deceased farmers as "martyrs" and "our own citizens."
Also missing from the executive list is firebrand Ayodhya resident Vinay Katiyar (66), the founder of Bajrang Dal and an MP thrice from Faizabad.
BJP's national general secretary and headquarters in-charge Arun Singh said no politics should be seen in the formation of the new executive.
The new executive is led by Prime Minister Modi and followed by veterans Lal Krishna Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, as also Union Ministers and former BJP Presidents Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah and Nitin Gadkari, besides union ministers Piyush Goyal, S Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman, Prahlad Joshi, Hardeep Singh Puri, Narendra Singh Tomar, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Smriti Irani, Kiren Rijiju, Meenakshi Lekhi, Giriraj Singh, Sripad Nayak, Mansukh Mandaviya, Anuragh Singh, Bhupender Yadav, and Jitendra Singh.
The national executive members from Maharashtra are: Prakash Javadekar, Vinay Sahasrabuddhe and Chitra Kishor Wagh.
