Rajnath to head BJP manifesto committee, Jaitley to look after publicity

New Delhi, Jan 6 (IANS) Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh will head the Bharatiya Janata Partys 'Sankalp Patra' (manifesto committee), while Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will chair the publicity committee of the BJP for the next Lok Sabha elections.

In all 17 committees have been announced on Sunday by BJP President Amit Shah that would look after different aspects of elections.

The 20-member manifesto committee headed by Rajanth Singh has several Union Ministers including Arun Jaitley, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Nirmala Sitharaman, Thaawarchand Gehlot, Piyush Goyal and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi.

Other heavyweights figuring in the Manifesto panel are Ram Madhav, former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi, Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya and Lok Sabha MP Meenakshi Lekhi.

Jaitley will head an eight-member publicity committee with Union ministers Piyush Goyal, Rajyavardhan Rathore and Mahesh Sharma as it's members.

Union Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari would head the social outreach committee while External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will head a committee that will be responsible for election-related literature.

Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has been made in-charge of the 17-member media committee. Shyam Jaju will handle the social media committee.

Rajya Sabha MP Bhupendra Yadav will head the committee that would handle matters pertaining to the Election Commission.

Senior leaders such as Prakash Javadekar, Kailash Vijayvargiya, Kalraj Mishr, Sadanand Gowda, S.S. Ahluwalia, Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, Arun Singh, Anil Jain, Bandaru Dattatreya and Rajeev Chandrashekhar have been made members of different committees.

Lok Sabha elections are scheduled in April-May this year. Prime Minister Narendra Modi would be seeking a second consecutive term.