Anil Antony appointed BJP national secretary, Abdullakutty continues as vice president

New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday appointed Anil Antony as the national secretary of the party. The list of new central office bearers of the party was announced by BJP president J P Nadda. A P Abdullakutty will continue as the national vice president of the party.

Anil Antony, son of senior Congress leader A K Antony, joined the saffron outfit in April. Anil accepted party membership from Union minister Piyush Goyal at the BJP headquarters in Delhi. Union minister V Muraleedharan and BJP state president K Surendran were present at the induction.

Anil Antony was the KPCC digital media convener and AICC social media coordinator before changing sides. He had a fallout with the Congress party over the BBC documentary on prime minister Narendra Modi. Following this, he resigned from all posts and joined the BJP.

BJP president J P Nadda rejigged the list of the party's central office-bearers on Saturday, bringing in a Pasmanda Muslim from Uttar Pradesh as one of its-vice presidents and accommodating its former Telangana unit chief Bandi Sanjay Kumar as a national general secretary.

The BJP has dropped C T Ravi, a leader from Karnataka, and Dilip Saikia, a Lok Sabha MP from Assam, as its general secretaries; a source indicated they may be contesting the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

Former Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) vice-chancellor Tariq Mansoor, now a BJP MLC in Uttar Pradesh, has been made a vice-president, a decision seen to be part of the party's overtures to Pasmanda Muslims.

Most of the office-bearers have been retained as vice-presidents, general secretaries and secretaries in the new list.

There are 13 vice-presidents, nine general secretaries, including B L Santhosh as the in-charge of organisation, and 13 secretaries in the list.

Former Union minister Radha Mohan Singh, a Lok Sabha MP from Bihar, has been dropped as a party vice-president.