Jagat Prakash Nadda Appointed BJP Working President
NEW DELHI : Former Union minister JP Nadda was appointed as the national working president of the BJP at the party’s parliamentary board meeting on Monday evening.
Amit Shah, who has entered the Narendra Modi cabinet as the home minister, will continue to be BJP chief and will likely see the party through assembly elections in Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand elections later this year.
The BJP parliamentary board has selected JP Nadda as working president,” senior leader and defence minister Rajnath Singh said.
After Shah was nominated to the Union cabinet, it was widely expected that the BJP will have a new president. Similar procedure was followed in 2014 when Rajnath Singh demitted office as the BJP chief after being made Home Minister in the Modi government.
Nadda was in contention for the BJP president’s post in 2014 after Rajnath Singh became the home minister in Narendra Modi’s first term as Prime Minister. However, he lost out to Amit Shah who was Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s choice for the BJP president post then.
Shah replaced Rajnath as the organisational head, and completed his predecessor’s remaining term. The organisational election process in the BJP starts later this year and culminates with the election of national president in January 2020. The amended BJP constitution stipulates for two full three-year term for the post of the party president.
Nadda, a Brahmin leader from Himachal Pradesh, enjoys the confidence of the party’s top brass, is trusted by the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh – the BJP’s ideological parent – and enjoys a clean reputation.He was the health minister in the first Narendra Modi government.
That Nadda (58) maintains a low-profile went in his favour as the new working president will be expected to run the organisation in cohesion with the government and carry on with organisational agenda firmed up by Shah.
Nadda is a member of the BJP’s parliamentary board, the party’s top decision-making body having its most important members, that gives him requisite seniority for the job as well. Known as a master strategist, Nadda was given the charge of Uttar Pradesh in the recently concluded elections in which the party bagged 62 out of 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state.
Educated at St. Xaviers School in Patna, Nadda thereafter did his BA from Patna College, Patna University and LLB from Himachal Pradesh University, Shimla. He was three-time MLA in the Himachal assembly and came to the Upper House from Himachal Pradesh when he was appointed Union minister in 2014.
For now, Mr Shah remains the party chief, but the workload will be shared with Mr Nadda.”Since PM appointed him Home Minister, Amit Shah Ji himself said the responsibility of party president should be given to someone else,” Rajnath Singh said. Mr Nadda enjoys the confidence of the party’s top leadership and is known to be trusted by the party’s ideological mentor Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh. The 58-year-old Brahmin leader from Himachal Pradesh has a clean reputation and maintains a low profile.
Amit Shah is credited with crafting the campaigns that saw the party twice win majority on its own – a first in three decades. Over the last five years, he also propelled the BJP towards its goal of a Congress-free India.
Named the home minister after the party came to power in May, Mr Shah had so far been handling both responsibilities. But with assembly elections looming in four states by the end of this year, and Delhi election the next, there was speculation whether he would retain the party post.
Acknowledging Mr Shah’s contribution as the BJP chief, Rajnath Singh said, “The BJP Board wished Shah to continue. But Shah was of opinion that he can’t discharge dual duties, (so) JP Nadda made working president”.
“Amit Shah said at the meeting that he was unable to devote time to the party as he was also looking after the home ministry and the party president’s post should be given to some other leader,” Singh told reporters after the parliamentary board meeting. Nadda’s appointment was designed to ensure a smooth transition in light of Amit Shah’s induction in PM Modi’s new team.
Nadda is widely respected in the RSS for his integrity and the years of service that he has rendered to the cause championed by the Sangh parivar. He became president of BJP’s youth wing at an early age of 31 in 1991 and shares good relations with all factions of the party.
Nadda was first elected to the Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly in 1993 and was twice re-elected to the state assembly in 1998 and 2007. He was a cabinet minister in the BJP government between 1998 and 2003 and also between 2008 and 2010.
Nadda moved to the national politics in 2010 as party’s national general secretary after Nitin Gadkari, the Nagpur leader backed by the RSS, was appointed BJP chief in 2009.
Nadda made his entry in the Rajya Sabha in 2012 and was appointed a minister in the Narendra Modi government in the first expansion of the council of ministers in November 2014. He held the crucial health ministry since then.(With Agency Inputs ).
