How BJP reshuffled its Sangathan Mantris amid Sangh unease

As the party's political footprint expands, Nitin Nabin is redeploying a limited pool of experienced organisation men across a widening electoral mapFor several months, Maharashtra had been something of an oddity in the BJP’s organisational map. One of its most politically important states did not have a full-time general secretary (organisation). That post is not a ceremonial one—the general secretary (organisation) works the party machine from within, coordinating with the state leadership, keeping an eye on the cadre, training and booth structure, and maintaining the organisational link with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). On September 24, the BJP filled the vacancy. Ajay Jamwal, who was handling Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, has been moved to Maharashtra. Satish Dhond, earlier in charge of West Bengal, has also been brought into Maharashtra as joint general secretary (organisation), with a separate responsibility for tribal outreach across Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Maharashtra.Then came the rest of the list. The party’s hero of the Rajasthan assembly poll victory, Chandrashekhar, who was later sent to Telangana, has been moved into Madhya Pradesh. Karmveer, who had been in Jharkhand, has been shifted to Chhattisgarh, with Pawan Sai replacing him. Dhond left Bengal. One vacancy was filled, but the exercise also created a fresh set of movements elsewhere. That, more than any individual appointment, is what makes the BJP’s latest organisational reshuffle worth examining.The party is increasingly having to move experienced organisation men around a political map that has grown substantially over the past decade. There are more states where the BJP is a serious electoral force, more regions where it wants to build from the ground up and more social constituencies that have acquired a specific organisational focus.The demand for people who know how to build and run the party machine, especially the Sangh-trained pracharaks, has consequently gone up. For the past two years, the party leadership has been consistently asking for a new set of pracharaks to man the state as well as central units. Eight states—Maharashtra, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Kerala, Goa and Arunachal Pradesh—did not have a full-time general secretary (organisation). The BJP had also sought additional pracharaks from the RSS, to replace some non-performing or underperforming ones. The issue has a larger backdrop. During the 2024 Lok Sabha campaign, then BJP president J.P. Nadda said the party had grown and was now capable of running its affairs on its own. He contrasted the BJP’s position with the period when it was a smaller party and relied more on the RSS. The remarks triggered an unusually public discussion about the relationship between the two organisations. The RSS subsequently described it as a “family matter”. It also acknowledged that there had been issues between the BJP and the Sangh that needed to be addressed.The Sangh and the BJP have reconciled on some key issues, including some appointments as well as improving the coordination for the electoral management of crucial assembly polls. The recent reshuffle of pracharaks, however, does reflect the need for more repair to normalise the relationship. The RSS has its own organisational responsibilities even as the BJP’s requirements have expanded. Whether the limited availability of pracharaks reflects a conscious decision by the Sangh, its own manpower needs or simply the demands of a much larger political organisation cannot be established from the reshuffle alone. What can be seen is how the BJP is coping with the shortage.The most striking example is the new regional map around two senior organisation men, Shivprakash and Saudan Singh. Shivprakash will now oversee Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Goa, with Mumbai as his centre. Singh, one of the BJP’s senior-most organisation managers, has been moved eastwards. He will look after Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal, with Bhubaneswar as his centre.For Singh, the move represents a substantial change in terrain. An organisation man associated for years with the northern political belt (as national vice-president) will now be working across an eastern stretch running from Bihar and Jharkhand to Odisha and West Bengal—especially in three of the states where the BJP has chief ministers for the first time. The party is doing something similar in the south. Madhukar will handle Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, while Dashrath gets the organisational charge of Telangana, with Warangal as his base. Elsewhere, Pawan Rana retains Delhi and will also look after Haryana. Mantri Srinivasulu retains Punjab and Chandigarh. Dharampal remains with Uttar Pradesh.The list also shows the BJP becoming more specific about where it wants organisational attention. V. Satish has been assigned the SC/ST morchas and the parliamentary office. Nagendra has been given senior-worker outreach. Dhond’s tribal outreach brief cuts across four states.And then there are the regional sangathaks. Abhay Giri, who has served in organisational positions in the Northeast, including Manipur and Nagaland, has now been assigned to Braj, with Agra as his base. Ananta Narayan Mishra, who had served as the BJP’s organisation secretary in Arunachal Pradesh, has been moved to the Bhagalpur, Purnia and Kosi regions. These are not the sort of appointments that generate much attention outside the party. Yet they reveal how the BJP is trying to take organisational management closer to the political ground.The party’s expansion has made the old state-by-state structure more complicated. A senior organisation man may now be responsible for several states. A state may have a general secretary (organisation) supported by a joint secretary. A region within the state can have its own sangathak. And a particular social constituency can have a separate organisational brief.It is a way of spreading experienced hands without necessarily increasing their numbers. That distinction matters. The BJP can always find political leaders. It can appoint a new state president, change a prabhari or put a minister in charge of a campaign. The organisation secretary is different. The job is built on years of work inside the cadre network and familiarity with the party’s organisational culture. It requires a different kind of political experience, much of it acquired away from public view.There is no quick way of creating a large number of such people. The September 24 list, therefore, reads as much like a redistribution exercise as a reshuffle. Maharashtra gets Jamwal. Madhya Pradesh gets Chandrashekhar. Chhattisgarh gets Karmveer. Jharkhand gets Pawan Sai. Bengal loses Dhond. The same organisational experience is being carried from one state to another. That does not necessarily mean the BJP’s organisation is weakening. It could equally reflect an attempt to use experienced people where the leadership believes they are most needed. But it does underline a constraint.The BJP’s political footprint has expanded faster than the supply of experienced organisation managers. That is particularly relevant for Nitin Nabin, who is now attempting to put his imprint on the party’s organisational structure. His reshuffle suggests a preference for clearer regional responsibilities, more specialised outreach and tighter supervision across states. The previous day’s appointments dealt largely with the political face of the party. Thursday’s list dealt with the machinery behind it. The distinction is important.Elections are won by politicians who campaign, communicate and mobilise. They are also fought through thousands of people whose names rarely appear in news reports, who spend months building booth committees, managing local networks, training workers and keeping the party apparatus moving between elections. Those people are harder to replace.The BJP’s organisational story, therefore, is not simply about who has been appointed where. It is about how the party is adapting as its political reach becomes wider and its organisational requirements become more demanding. For now, the answer appears to be redistribution. The new map puts more responsibility on a relatively small group of experienced hands, gives some of them multiple states, moves others into smaller regional territories and assigns specific outreach tasks to still others. Whether that arrangement is enough to match the BJP’s expanding political ambitions will become clearer not in Delhi, but on the ground, when the next electoral battles begin.Subscribe to India Today Magazine- Ends