With JP Nadda in cabinet, BJP set to elect new party chief
JP Nadda inducted into the Union cabinet, the BJP has to elect a new party president. The party has a pattern in appointing national presidents over the last two terms. In 2014, when the then president Rajnath Singh became a Union minister, he passed on the baton to Amit Shah. In 2019, after Shah became a Union minister, JP Nadda was appointed as working president of the party in June 2019. He became a full-time president in January 2020. In January this year, his term as president expired. However, he was given a six-month extension to oversee the Lok Sabha elections and his term ends in June.
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The names, which were doing the rounds for the party president's post, have already been inducted into the Union cabinet. Leaders like former MP chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, former Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal, Union ministers Dharmendra Pradhan and Bhupendra Yadav were in public domain. But all of these leaders have been included in the Union cabinet.
This leaves the BJP to look inwards into the party organisation. There are two names which are being speculated for the post — general secretaries Vinod Tawde and Sunil Bansal. Vinod Tawde is from Maharashtra and was a minister in the state government before venturing into national politics. At present, he is the general secretary in-charge of Bihar and handled several key responsibilities during the Lok Sabha campaign. Tawde has gained prominence in a short time with the execution of specific campaigns run by the party for beneficiaries as well as public outreach programmes.
