J P Nadda to steer BJP to 2024 LS polls but first, southern test awaits

Announcing the BJP national executive’s decision to unanimously extend Nadda’s term, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday said the 62-year-old had “transformed the charismatic leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi into a mandate for the BJP”. Shah claimed that the BJP “is the most democratic party” in India, with organisational elections usually taking place from booths to the national level. But, because of a membership campaign and due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the election process got delayed. “So, the national executive took up the matter. Rajnath Singh ji has moved the resolution and the national executive endorsed it unanimously,” Shah said.

Nadda took over as the BJP’s working president after Amit Shah was elevated to the Union Cabinet following the 2019 general elections. He officially became the party’s national president on January 20, 2020, and, as the pandemic started, he launched the “Sewa hi Sangathan” programme during the national lockdown. As part of the initiative, party workers were deployed for relief work and ration was distributed for free to people affected by the pandemic. “Nadda ji has connected the BJP with the concept of service with vibrancy,” said Shah, underlining the veteran leader’s contributions.

The BJP’s electoral juggernaut continued to roll during Nadda’s tenure, with successes in several states. In 2019, the BJP became the single-largest party in Haryana, where it was ruling with a clear majority, and formed the government in alliance with the Jannayak Janta Party. The following year, the party won 74 seats in Bihar, where it contested the polls in alliance with the Janata Dal (United) of Nitish Kumar. Shah said the BJP achieved its “highest strike rate” in Bihar under Nadda. After the pandemic came the victories in Assam, Uttar Pradesh, Manipur, Uttarakhand, and Gujarat.

But, the JD(U) walked out of the alliance last August and realigned with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). The BJP similarly lost the Shiv Sena, one of its oldest allies, in November 2019 after the Uddhav Thackeray-led party joined hands with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress to form the government in Maharashtra. The BJP managed to hit back last October after a split in the Shiv Sena, with its tacit support, and the subsequent political realignment brought it back to power.

Another long-term ally that the BJP lost during the soft-spoken Nadda’s tenure is the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), leaving the perception that the party cannot take along its allies.

However, the biggest blow to the Nadda presidency was the BJP’s loss in the Himachal Pradesh Assembly polls last December. Despite his efforts, Nadda could not contain an internal rebellion in the party in his home state. Most of the dissidents blamed the BJP president for their unhappiness. But the landslide win in Gujarat and the narrow margin of the defeat in the hill state — the difference in the vote share of the Congress and the BJP was less than one per cent — cushioned the intensity of the blow.

Addressing the media on Tuesday outside the NDMC Convention Hall, Shah lauded Nadda’s “tireless work” behind the growth of the BJP as an organisation and strengthening its booth-level structure. Over the past year, the party extended its outreach initiatives to 1.3 lakh booths where it considered itself as weak. It has grown as the strongest force in the North East. Apart from Assam, it is in power in Tripura and Manipur and is part of the ruling coalition in Meghalaya and Nagaland.

“Under him, the BJP will get a stronger mandate in 2024 and Modi ji will be the prime minister again,” Shah said. The responsibility lies on Nadda’s shoulders.