New Delhi: BJP national president Nitin Nabin Thursday appointed new party chiefs for its four state units, naming Union minister Harsh Malhotra as the Delhi BJP president.
While Archana Gupta was appointed as the BJP Haryana president, Sardar Kewal Singh Dhillon was made the party’s Punjab unit chief, according to separate notifications issued by party national general secretary Arun Singh.
Abhishek Debroy, an MLA from Matabari assembly constituency in Tripura, was made president of the BJP state unit.
“All these appointments come into force with immediate effect,” Singh said.
Harsh Malhotra, 62, is the only Union minister in the Modi Cabinet from Delhi. He replaces Virendra Sachdeva, who completed his three-year term as the Delhi BJP president in March this year.
Malhotra, who served as the general secretary of the Delhi unit of the BJP before becoming a minister at the Centre, is considered an expert on organisational matters as well as the functioning of the civic bodies. In 2015, he was elected as mayor of the erstwhile East Delhi Municipal Corporation.
Archana Gupta, newly appointed Haryana BJP president, is a doctor by profession. She was serving the party as its state general secretary. Gupta takes over from Mohan Lal Badoli.
Gupta, who hails from Panipat, is the second woman after Kamla Verma, a veteran BJP leader, to lead the Haryana BJP as its president.
Sardar Kewal Singh Dhillon, a two-time former Congress MLA from Barnala, had joined the BJP in 2022 and was subsequently appointed vice-president of the state unit of the party.
The newly appointed Haryana BJP chief is considered a close confidant of former Punjab chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh, who had also joined the BJP in 2022 about a year after his bitter parting with the Congress.
The BJP appointing Dhillon, a Sikh, as its Punjab unit chief indicates the party’s intent to strongly fight the state assembly polls due next year. According to sources, some state BJP leaders had been pushing for a Sikh face to lead the Punjab unit of the party.
The BJP has already started preparations for the 2027 Punjab assembly polls hoping to dislodge the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government from power in the state.
Dhillon replaces Sunil Jakhar, who was appointed as the Punjab BJP president in July 2023. Jakhar had also joined the BJP in 2022, ending his long association with the Congress.