NEW DELHI: The much-watched decision on the new BJP national president is likely to come after the Bihar election results are declared and before mid-January next year. In the 2020 polls, results were announced on 10 November and in 2015 on 8 November.
Party sources told The Sunday Guardian that barring any “highly surprising” decision by the top leadership, current party president Jagat Prakash Nadda will continue to hold the position till mid-November.
Nadda, who is also serving as the Union Health Minister, was first appointed as the party’s working president in June 2019 before taking over as full-time president in January 2020—making his tenure one of the longest in succession. His predecessor, Home Minister Amit Shah, assumed the post in July 2014 and continued until January 2020.
Party sources said that the organisation is currently focused on the Bihar elections and the upcoming West Bengal polls, and therefore sees no point in making leadership changes at this stage. Such a move would inevitably trigger organisational churn—responsibilities would be reallocated, state-level equations recalibrated and hence the delay.
According to insiders, the Bihar election results will play a role in the selection of the new president. Earlier this week, Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan was appointed election in-charge of the state, where the BJP-led NDA, by multiple accounts, is facing its toughest contest in recent times. A loss for the BJP in Bihar will have wider implications at the national level, as Bihar—along with Uttar Pradesh—is seen as a prominent weather vane of the nation’s political mood.
Pradhan is among the names in circulation, along with cabinet colleagues Bhupender Yadav, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, and others, as a possible replacement for Nadda.
Sources indicated that post-Bihar results, significant changes in the organisation, the cabinet, and also at the state level—including the replacement of a few sitting Chief Ministers—are not ruled out.
Yadav, according to his supporters within the party, is considered one of the strongest contenders for the post given his warm ties with Shah. Another contender, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, has announced that he would prefer to continue in his current role in the state. Sources also indicated that Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has conveyed his reluctance to take up the position.
The delay in announcing the new president, after Nadda completed his second three-year term in January 2024 and was subsequently given two extensions, is not attributed to a single reason. Party sources cited internal elections, “Operation Sitdoor,” and prolonged deliberations with the RSS—the party’s ideological guardian—as some of the factors that have inevitably pushed back the announcement.
