After a year marked by mostly ups than downs, the BJP is preparing for both continuity and change in 2024. Given the pattern of candidate and CM picks in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan, party leaders are expecting a “new-look BJP” in the coming year when it will attempt returning to power nationally for the third straight term. “We will have to see who are the ones denied a Lok Sabha ticket and if there is any Chief Minister who is asked to contest the Lok Sabha polls. Many sitting MPs may lose their tickets, some Union ministers also may lose their tickets, and the sword of a new role will dangle over the head of any CM who is asked to contest the Lok Sabha polls,” said a BJP leader. After the recent Assembly election victories, the party is confident of returning to power nationally for the third straight term. According to a BJP insider, if the BJP wins, one will have to watch out for the new Council of Ministers closely as some old faces may be eased out and new ones may be given ministries. Some leaders believe an organisational overhaul may also be on the cards. BJP president J P Nadda’s term has been extended till June 2024. While some speculated that leaders with organisational experience who work quietly — such as Dharmendra Pradhan or Bhupender Yadav — would be Nadda’s ideal replacement at the helm of the party, one leader said nothing could be predicted given the way the party surprised everyone with its CM picks in three Hindi heartland states earlier this month. “You can never say for sure. Look at the CM picks of MP and Rajasthan. All the names doing the rounds were not chosen. A complete dark horse cannot be ruled out in today’s BJP.” Once the Lok Sabha elections are done and dusted with, the BJP will have three Assembly elections to prepare for. State elections are due in Maharashtra, Haryana, and Jharkhand in 2024. There is also the election to the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir that the Supreme Court has instructed be held by September. Party insiders said there were likely to be surprises in the states where the Assembly elections would be held. In Haryana, Manohar Lal Khattar’s fate will hang in the balance if the party deploys the collective leadership pitch. This is a possibility as Haryana may not be an easy win in light of the year-long massive farmers’ agitation 2020-’21. Jats were at the forefront of the protests there and the Congress has Bhupinder Singh Hooda, a Jat, as its most prominent face. With the election of BJP MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh’s aide as the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) president on December 21 triggering a backlash, the government moved fast to contain the anger and suspended the wrestling body three days later. Most of the wrestlers who have accused Brij Bhushan of sexual harassment are from Haryana and the BJP’s move is being seen as a signal to the state, and the Jat community in particular, that it stands with them. The party also targeted the Opposition during the Winter Session over the “insult” to Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, who is a Jat, after Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Kalyan Banerjee was filmed mimicking him. In Maharashtra, it has to be seen if Devendra Fadnavis is projected as the CM face as the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has expanded and there are more claimants for power. A BJP leader said the leadership’s claims had become wider and the party might look to do a balancing act, which may not be to Fadnavis’s advantage. A Brahmin, Fadnavis also comes from a numerically small caste, and Brahmins have already been given one CM in Bhajan Lal Sharma of Rajasthan. In Jharkhand, the BJP will hope to gain from the anti-incumbency against CM Hemant Soren. However, while the graph of Babulal Marandi, now the state party chief, was seen as on the rise in recent months, the fact that Chhattisgarh now has a tribal CM in Vishnu Deo Sai has made party insiders suspect that there will be suspense over the Jharkhand CM too if the part manages to unseat the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha. In Delhi, where elections are due in early 2025, the party is expected to sustain pressure on Arvind Kejriwal and Aam Admi Party (AAP) over alleged corruption throughout the coming year so that it can strike at the base of the party’s legitimacy among voters in the national capital. The AAP has been able to trump the BJP in Assembly polls based on its subsidies to the poor though the script overturns completely in the parliamentary elections. The sustained pressure on Kejriwal through investigative agencies will be aimed at veering the discourse away from cheap power and water to corruption and siphoning off of public money. “One cannot pinpoint the exact change in terms of faces that the BJP will see through 2024, but there is little doubt that major leadership changes are expected. Just as 2019 saw some faces fade into oblivion and new faces emerge, 2024 will perhaps see a bigger overhaul,” said a BJP leader.
