New Delhi | In the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, BJP president J P Nadda on Sunday replaced the party's Delhi unit general secretary (organisation) Siddharthan, who held the post for nearly eight years, with his Himachal Pradesh counterpart, Pawan Rana.
Orders issued by Nadda swapped the posts of Rana, the Himachal Pradesh BJP general secretary (organisation), and Siddharthan in a shake-up.
Rana will now hold the post of Delhi BJP general secretary (organisation) while Siddharthan will replace him in Himachal Pradesh.
Under Siddharthan, who took charge as the Delhi BJP general secretary (organisation) in 2015, the party suffered back-to-back reverses at the hands of its main rival AAP in the 2020 Assembly polls and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) elections held in December 2022.
Rana, who will now supervise the party's organisational matters in Delhi, was appointed at the helm of its Himachal Pradesh unit last year, after the BJP suffered a defeat in the Assembly polls in the hill state at the hands of the Congress.
Delhi BJP leaders hoped that under Rana, the party will be able to improve its performance in the national capital.
"The real test of Rana will be in 2025, when the Assembly polls are due. We just hope he will work in tandem with the state leadership and avoid imposing himself on it," said a top functionary of the Delhi BJP on the condition of anonymity.
The Delhi unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is currently led by Virendra Sachdeva, a Punjabi born and brought up in the city, following the party's experiment to revive its fortunes pitted against the AAP by first appointing a Purvanchali and then a trader community leader as its state presidents.
Under the two previous presidents of its Delhi unit, Manoj Tiwari and Adesh Gupta from the Purvanchali and Baniya community respectively, the BJP had come up with mixed results in elections.
The BJP has been out of power in Delhi for three decades now. It suffered massive losses at the hands of the AAP in the 2015 and 2020 Assembly polls in Delhi, although it swept the Lok Sabha elections in 2014 and 2019, winning all the seven parliamentary seats in the national capital.
