Will Gadkari be the next BJP president?

State Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Nitin Gadkari’s visit to New Delhi on Thursday fuelled speculation that he might be chosen as the party’s national president.

Though Gadkari supporters denied the visit had any connection with selection to the party’s top job, they admitted that he was among the most probable successors to Rajnath Singh.

Gadkari reached New Delhi on Thursday afternoon. He reportedly attended a meeting in which top leaders from the BJP and its parent organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) were present.

“Nitin Gadkari and Manohar Parrikar are among the probables for the party’s top post,” a Gadkari supporter said. “But he (Gadkari) was in Delhi for an important meeting of Purti sugar factory headed by him. After that, he met some of the party leaders as normal courtesy,” he said.

On the other hand, sources in RSS said that the future president of the BJP will not be from Maharashtra. “The BJP needs a president who is not too young, and neither too old. He needs to set the house in order first. Once the task is completed in his two-year tenure, the party will have to choose a dashing leader as its president to snatch power from the Congress at the Centre,” a source said.

RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat has already made it clear that BJP’s new president will
be from outside Delhi. Rajnath Singh’s tenure will come to an end in December.