Recent appointment shows BJP’s changing internal dynamics

New Delhi: The recent appointment of 40-year-old Rituraj Sinha as the Secretary in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has generated a lot of discussion among the party circles in Bihar and outside. Sinha, the Managing Director of SIS India, is the son of Ravindra Kishore Sinha, who was the party’s Rajya Sabha Member till 2020, but was denied another term and was also not given the Lok Sabha ticket from Patna (Saheb), which was given to former Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, which he comfortably won. Both Sinha and Prasad belong to the Kayastha community.
Party leaders based in Patna and Delhi, who handle Bihar affairs, said that the appointment of Sinha and the March 2020 decision of the leadership of sending Vivek Thakur, son of party stalwart and prominent Bhumihar face C.P. Thakur to the Rajya Sabha, indicated the goodwill that Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan enjoyed with the top leadership when it comes to taking political decisions related to Bihar. Pradhan has in the past worked as the election in-charge of Bihar. According to a Patna-based party functionary, Pradhan is trusted by both BJP president Nadda. Both Pradhan and Nadda have years of experience of working together in the late 1990s and early 2000 and during their stint with Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP).
Apart from Sinha, the party had on 21 November appointed Maharashtra based Vinod Tawde as General Secretary in the context of the rise of Devendra Fadnavis and Asha Lakda of Jharkhand as secretary in the party. Due to this recent Bihar centric developments within the party, Bihar minister and Bankipur MLA Nitin Nabin, who is also a Kayastha like Sinha and Ravi Shankar Prasad, and has been seeking a Lok Sabha ticket from Patna, will now have to surmount additional political challenges if he has to contest from the Patna seat in the near future. The appointment of Nabin as party co-incharge of an important state like Chhattisgarh by the BJP is likely to have an effect on candidate selection during the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.