Laxmikant Bajpai is new UP BJP president

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) changed the Uttar Pradesh (UP) State President and appointed Laxmikant Bajpai as its new BJP President after the party's poor show in the recent assembly polls, BJP today appointed vice-president of state unit Laxmikant Bajpai as the new chief of Uttar Pradesh unit replacing Surya Pratap Shahi. BJP national president Nitin Gadkari has accepted the resignation of Shahi and appointed Bajpai as the new state president in his place, party spokesman Vijay Bahadur Pathak said here. Shahi has been appointed as the special invited member in the national executive of the party, he said. 

60-year-old Bajpai, a former minister and sitting MLA from Meerut, will be the 11th state president of the party. An ayurveda practitioner, Bajpai started working for Jansangh at the age of 14 in 1964. He also led a number of successful agitation as a student leader. Since 1977, Bajpai has held various posts in the party at district, city and state level.