The Uttar Pradesh BJP has named former IAS officer and state MLC AK Sharma as its state vice president.
The new appointment was announced on Saturday by BJP state unit head Swatantra Dev Singh.
AK Sharma is also Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s most trusted bureaucrat, having overseen the activities of the MSME (micro, small and medium businesses) ministry, a vital department working under the prime minister’s plan for the economy’s resuscitation following the coronavirus-induced shutdown.
Singh also announced the appointments of Archana Mishra of Lucknow and Amit Valmiki of Bulandshahr as secretary of the state unit in an official release.
The state BJP unit also named Geeta Shakya, a Rajya Sabha MP, as the president of the UP Mahila Morcha, and Pranshu Dutt, a state minister, as the state Yuva Morcha’s leader.
Kameshwar Singh, on the other hand, will take over as head of the state Kisan Morcha.
These organisational reforms come ahead of the important Uttar Pradesh assembly election next year, in which the BJP hopes to keep power.
On April 11, 1962, Sharma was born in the Muhammadabad region of Uttar Pradesh’s Mau district. He entered the public service after completing his post-graduate studies in 1988, and his first appointment as an IAS officer in the Gujarat cadre was as a Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM). He was appointed DM Mehsana in 1995.
Sharma was the rehabilitation commissioner for the Sardar Sarovar project on the Narmada before joining the CMO in 2001. When Narendra Modi became chief minister, he was given a list of three officials to choose from for the position of CMO, and PM Modi chose Sharma.
Sharma shown a great interest in financial concerns when he organised the first edition of PM Modi’s pet project, “Vibrant Gujarat,” which resulted in the state government signing 76 Memorandums of Understanding totaling $14 billion for investment in the state.
Sharma was moved in from Gandhi Nagar to Delhi when PM Modi took over the prime minister’s office in South Block. PM Modi assumed office on May 26, 2014, and Sharma’s appointment to the PMO was signed on May 30, and he began working as the joint secretary in the PMO on June 3.
During his two-day visit to Delhi last week, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi after holding separate discussions with Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP President JP Nadda.
