New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party has dropped leaders Maneka Gandhi and Varun Gandhi from the 80 member National Executive list released on Thursday.
The list was released by the party's national president JP Nadda on Thursday. While Maneka is a Lok Sabha MP from Sultanpur, her son Varun represents Pilibhit in the Lower House.
The list has the names of the party's top brass, ranging from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to many Union Ministers, several state leaders and veterans like LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi.
The move comes even as Varun Gandhi has been vocal about the Lakhimpur Kheri violence case and has been demanding strict action on the incident by the ruling BJP government in the state. It is to be noted the main accused in the Lakhimpur case is Union Minister Ajay Mishra's son.
Not once, but on two instances Varun Gandhi took to Twitter and expressed his views on the incident garnering appreciation from the opposition for being the "only" BJP leader being vocal on the injustice done to farmers.
The Pilibhit MP posted a 37-second video that shows a speeding Mahindra Thar jeep running over people and wrote ‘protestors cannot be silenced through murder.
He has also written to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath regarding the incident and had demanded immediate identification of the suspects and a CBI probe under the supervision of the Supreme Court.
According to an ANI report, sources have said that his stand on the Lakhimpur incident did not go well with BJP's top leadership.
Not only him, but his mother Maneka Gandhi who is also an MP from Sultanpur has been dropped from the list. The National Executive is made of top leaders who meet to discuss key issues facing the government and shapes the organization’s agenda.
Besides 80 regular members, the executive will also have 50 special invitees and 179 permanent invitees. The disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has prevented its meeting for a long time.