D K Aruna elevated to national VP, Dr Laxman president of OBC Morcha

Hyderabad: The Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday announced D.K. Aruna from Telangana as the national vice-president, along with 11 names and former President of the party in the state Dr K Laxman as the president of OBC Morcha.

This is the first reshuffle after J.P. Nadda taking charge as the party national president from Amit Shah.

In March 2019, after losing the legislative assembly election from Gadwal to her nephew Bandla Krishna Mohan Reddy of TRS, Aruna joined the BJP leaving the Congress party. In 2019 LS elections, she contested from Mahabubnagar constituency but lost by more than 77,000 votes.

She had been the minister for information and public relations in the YS Rajasekhar Reddy government in 2004 and from 2009, she served as the minister of small scale industries, sugar, khadi and village industries.

Dr K. Laxman has been Telangana BJP state president from 2016 t0 2020. In 1999, for the first time, he was elected as the MLA from Musheerabad Assembly constituency and again in 2014, but lost in 2018 Assembly election.

“Congratulations & best wishes to the new team. I am confident they'll uphold the glorious tradition of our party of serving India's people selflessly & with dedication. May they work hard to empower the poor & marginalised,” said Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his tweet.

Among the major changes in national leadership, Tejasvi Surya, an MP from Karnataka, as president of the Yuva Morcha replacing Poonam Mahajan.