Ravinder Raina emerged unanimous choice to be re-elected for the post of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president for J&K and Ladakh UTs as he was the lone candidate in the fray for the post, the elections of which are slated to be held today here at State BJP Headquarters, Trikuta Nagar. Though Raina’s name was already cleared by party High Command for the post in view of his past one and half year’s track record to give him another chance to serve the party for full term of three years, the State incharge of elections, Virenderjit Singh had issued the election notification on January 12 for the elections to the post of J&K BJP chief. As per the notification the filing of nomination papers was up to 3pm today and scrutiny of the papers was to be done at 5 pm. However no candidate except Ravinder Raina filled up his form paving the way for his unanimous election to the post. The formal announcement of his election as J&K BJP president will be made today afternoon in presence of two Central observers Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Dr Harsh Vardhan and Tarun Chug party national secretary and other senior party leaders. As per a party handout Raina, submitted his papers to the State incharge BJP’s organizational elections Varinderjit Singh in presence of State co-incharge organizational elections, Munish Sharma, State general secretary (Org.), Ashok Kaul and other senior leaders. While filing the nomination papers for his re-election, Raina expressed his gratitude to all senior party leaders for the love and faith they have shown during his first term as State president of the party. He said that the BJP has a healthy tradition of strong inner democracy, where the organizational elections are held after every three years and any party activist from the booth level without any political Godfather and belongingness to any gifted family can contest the election to reach any level. He said that a BJP Karyakarta, irrespective of his class, region or religion, can reach to the highest post in the party as it is his or her honesty, commitment and service to the organization that matters. “In the present term, I have served to the best in my capacity to keep my commitments with nation as well as my organization and I assure everybody that I will never leave any gap in my duties in the future” he added. Varinderjit Singh, accompanied by Munish Sharma, said that the party has successfully proceeded with the organizational elections proceeding right from booth level, then Mandal presidents and then district presidents and now the election for the post of BJP State president will be held on January 15, 2020. These elections took more than three months and the new State president along with all other new elected party functionaries will serve their term from year 2020 to year 2023. He also mentioned that all the district presidents, State Council members and five National Council members will cast their vote for the election of BJP State president. Earlier, a meeting was held at the party headquarter, wherein the name of Ravinder Raina, was proposed for the post of next J&K BJP president which was backed by the written submissions by 20 voters present in the meeting. Priya Sethi, Rajinder Singh Chib, Billu Ram, Anita Langeh, Puran Chand, Nand Kishore, H. S. Pammi, Beena Devi, Natha Ram, Jagdish Bhagat, Reeta Varma, Munish Kumar Khajuria, Urvashi Gupta, Anil Masoom, Rekha Mahajan, Vijay Kumar Gupta, Ashok Choudhary, Amar Singh, Keshav Dutt and Narsingh Dayal submitted their unanimous support. Former Deputy CM, Kavinder Gupta, former ministers, Sat Sharma, Chander Prakash Ganga, Bali Bhagat, Sham Choudhary, Sukhnandan Choudhary, Dr. D. K. Manyal, Priya Sethi, former MLAs, Rajesh Gupta, Neelam Langeh, Sanjeev Sharma, Kuldeep Kumar, Dalip Singh Parihar, Rajiv Sharma, former MLCs Charanjit Singh Khalsa, Yudhvir Sethi, Sanjay Baru, Arvind Gupta, Ajay Pargal, Balbir Ram Rattan, Tilak Raj Gupta, Dr. Pardeep Mahotra, Vinay Kumar Gupta, H. S. Pammi, Munish Khajuria, Jugal Dogra, Ayodhya Gupta, Rekha Mahajan and others senior leaders were present on the occasion.
