Anita Arya
Vice-president
To many, the name “Anita Arya” doesn’t ring a bell and BJP critics blame it on the party’s upper caste character. But then this former Member of Parliament from Delhi’s Karol Bagh constituency has not exactly stood out for taking up Dalit issues. Madam, as she is called by her supporters, is hardly a match for BSP biggies or even Congress’s Meira Kumar. A former party general secretary in Venkaiah Naidu’s team, Arya is known more for her interest in Delhi (where she also served as a former mayor). A regular at Delhi BJP functions, she has authored a book called Indian Women.

Smriti Irani
Secretary
If a certain Ekta Kapoor made you believe that her K-serials on television mirrored the Great Indian Middle Class, Smriti Irani was her much-touted “perfect protagonist”. The pativrata bharatiya naari image that Irani projected day in and day out, in reel life as also in real life, endeared her to the BJP. Her initiation into big-time politics, goes an apocryphal tale, was engineered to check the party’s biggest woman leader. Ambitious and articulate, Irani flits from Delhi’s Chandni Chowk (where she fought the Congress’s Kapil Sibal) to Narendra Modi’s Gujarat and to various television studios with effortless ease.
In demand for election campaigns, the actor-politician has managed to make a mark.

Nirmala Seetharaman
National Executive member
Nirmala Seetharaman is a rarity—she went to JNU and then made it to the BJP National Executive. After her MA and MPhil from Delhi’s red-bricked Marxist bastion in the early 1980s, Seetharaman took up an assignment with PrivewaterhouseCoopers in London. Once back in India in 1991, she became active with the Swadeshi Jagran Manch and Rashtriya Sevika Samiti. A former member of the National Commission for Women, she spoke passionately on “Aung San Suu Kyi’s Myanmar” at the recent BJP National Executive. She’s a face to watch out for.

... contd.