Manoj Tiwari was removed as the Delhi BJP chief on Tuesday. He has been succeeded by Adesh Kumar Gupta.
According to a notice posted by the BJP on its Twitter handle, "BJP national President JP Nadda has appointed Adesh Kumar Gupta as the Delhi unit President of BJP". The letter was signed by Arun Singh, the National General Secretary of the BJP.
Less than a day earlier, Tiwari and other BJP members had been detained after organising a protest against the Arvind Kejriwal government's failure to contain COVID-19 cases in the national capital. As per a PTI report, Tiwari was detained along with several party workers for alleged violation of lockdown norms.
While Tiwari had led the party to victory in the MCD polls in Delhi in 2017, the BJP suffered a crushing defeat in the Assembly polls earlier this year. At the time Tiwari had offered to resign from his post. He later refuted reports that had offered to do so.
An IANS report suggests that the party leadership had told Tiwari that a change of guard in Delhi will take place as and when "structural changes" are made in BJP's Delhi unit.
On Tuesday the BJP appointed Gupta as its Delhi unit chief and tribal leader and former Union minister Vishnu Deo Sai as its Chhattisgarh state president. Gupta is a former mayor of north Delhi municipal corporation while Sai was a Union minister in the first Modi government.
The party also made S Tikendra Singh its Manipur state president.
(With inputs from agencies)
