Former Chhattisgarh Legislative Assembly speaker Dharmpal Koushik was appointed as the Chhattisgarh State Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) president on Saturday.
The post of the state BJP president was lying vacant for over two months after the former president Vishnu Deo Sahay got elected to Lok Sabha from Raigarh constituency and become the Union Minister of State for Mines, Steel, Labour and Employment.
Mr. Koushik is considered a low profile leader in the state and had also lost assembly election from Bilha seat in 2013.
“A strong state president could have become a headache for CM Raman Singh. Mr. Koushik fits in the CM’s plan of things and that’s the reason he has been appointed as the state president,” claimed a BJP leader requesting anonymity.
Two other BJP leaders from the state also found place in the BJP president Amit Shah’s new team announced on Saturday.
Former MP Saroj Pande, who lost her Durg Lok Sabha seat to Congress’s Tamradhwaj Sahu in the Lok Sabha elections earlier this year, has been appointed national general secretary and tribal leader Ramvichar Netam has been made Secretary of the party.
However, the Congress party criticized the BJP for appointing “rejected leaders” as its office bearers from the state.
“The leaders, who were rejected by the people of Chhattisgarh, have been given plum posts by the BJP. It’s time for the people of Chhattisgarh to reject the BJP out rightly,” said state Congress general secretary Shailesh Nitin Trivedi.
