Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will be the Deputy to Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is the Leader of the ruling BJP in the Lok Sabha. Social Justice Minister Thawar Chand Gehlot has replaced veteran Arun Jaitley as the BJP’s Leader in the Rajya Sabha. Railway Minister Piyush Goyal is the new Deputy Leader of the BJP in the Council of the States.
The appointments were announced as part of the BJP parliamentary party that was reconstituted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party President Amit Shah on Tuesday. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi will be the Chief Whip of the treasury benches from the government side in the Lok Sabha while his two deputies — Arjun Ram Meghwal and V. Muraleedharan — will be Deputy Chief Whips from the government in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha respectively. From the party, Sanjay Jaiswal will be Chief Whip in Lok Sabha and Narayan Lal Panchariya in the Rajya Sabha.
The newly-constituted BJP parliamentary party is totally distinct from its past formations in that it includes neither LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi nor Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley who headed the party in the two Houses when the BJP was in the Opposition. Jaitley continued as Leader of the House in Rajya Sabha in the last five years.
For the first time, three women leaders have been appointed Whips specifically for women MPs in the Lok Sabha. Ranjanaben Bhatt, Shobha Karandlaje and Locket Chatterjee are party Whips for women MPs.
The inclusion of Smriti Irani is notable among the list of Special Invitees which include senior ministers Nitin Gadkari, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Arjun Munda, Narendra Singh Tomar and Jual Oram. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is among the Special Invitees in the Rajya Sabha along with J P Nadda, Om Prakash Mathur, Dharmendra Pradhan and Prakash Javadekar.
Party MP Kailash Vijayvargiya is in charge of the parliamentary party while Balasubrahmanyam Kamarsu is the office secretary. Gopal Shetty is the treasurer of the BJP parliamentary party.