The Bharatiya Janata Party has nominated Tarun Chugh, Vinod Tawde, and Satish Poonia to oversee election prep work in Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, and Punjab respectively. All three states will vote next year and each represents a critical electoral battle for the ruling party.

Chugh, Tawde, and Poonia – all Rajya Sabha MPs – are considered strong organisational hands, and will be tasked with ensuring the party retains power in Gujarat (Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state) and Uttar Pradesh, while wresting Punjab away from the Aam Aadmi Party.

The party is expected to announce state-in-charges for the other poll-bound states – which includes Manipur, Goa, Uttarakhand, and Himacha Pradesh – in due course.

The announcement comes a day after the BJP unveiled a shake-up of its senior leadership. New party boss Nitin Nabin recalled ex-union minister Smriti Irani to his team and dropped Amit Malviya as his IT Cell chief – a post he held for 11 years prior – as part of that shake-up.

Irani returned as a National General Secretary and to a leadership role for the first time since the 2024 Lok Sabha election, when she lost her seat in UP’s Amethi to the Congress’ Kishori Lal Sharma. Irani had wrestled the seat – a Gandhi family bastion – from Rahul Gandhi in 2019.

Nabin also named Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal as the BJP’s treasurer and also recalled senior leader Ram Madhav, who has been made a National Vice President.

Former Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje Scindia and her Uttarakhand counterpart, Tirath Singh Rawat, were also named to that list, as were the party’s Andhra Pradesh unit boss, Lok Sabha MP D Purandeshwarai and UP leaders Rekha Verma and Tariq Masnsoor.

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Veteran leader BL Santhosh has been retained as National General Secretary (Organisation).

BJP sources said the overhaul in its media cell was a pointer that the party’s thrust is now on effective social media communication in the wake of the Gen Z-driven student protests at Jantar Mantar and the rise of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP).