The BJP on Wednesday dropped Union Minister Nitin Gadkari and Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan from its parliamentary board and brought in six new faces including B S Yediyurappa and Iqbal Singh Lalpura.

Union Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, K Laxman, Sudha Sadav and Satyanarayan Jatiya are the other new members of the BJP's apex organisational body -- an attempt by the party to make the parliamentary board more socially and regionally representative, according to PTI.

Lalpura will be the first Sikh to have a seat in the BJP parliamentary board as a person from a minority community.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union ministers Amit Shah and Rajnath Singh and BJP president J P Nadda are among its members.

The party also rejigged its Central Election Committee and included former Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, Union Minister Bhupender Yadav, Om Mathur and its women wing chief Vanathi Srinivasan.

Former Union minister Shahnawaz Hussain and Jual Oram have been dropped from the CEC, whose members also include all parliamentary board members.

Nitin Gadkari's exclusion from the important committee is the biggest shocker in this exercise, apart from Yediyurappa's surprise entry. Gadkari, one of the most senior ministers in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government, is a former BJP chief and so far, the party has traditionally kept its former presidents in the decision-making process.

Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, also a former BJP chief, has made a reentry into the parliamentary board.

Karnataka BJP leader B.S Yediyurappa was forced to resign as Chief Minister last year, At 77, he is way past the party's unwritten age bar of 75. Sources say the influential politician has been unhappy for some time and the party wanted to pacify him.

Former Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, who agreed to make way for Himanta Biswa Sarma after the BJP was re-elected in the state, also finds himself in the parliamentary board and the Central Election Committee.

It's a big boost for Devendra Fadnavis too after he was forced to accept a downgrade to Deputy Chief Minister when the BJP came to power in Maharashtra with Shiv Sena rebel Eknath Shinde.