DNA Edit: BJP’s transition – JP Nadda has big shoes to fit into

Jagat Prakash Nadda, 58, has arguably the country’s biggest shoes to fit into. BJP’s newly appointed working president has a task that can only be described as onerous. He is to head the country’s largest and most dynamic political party and his job is to achieve the Herculean heights attained by predecessor Amit Shah. To that extent, Nadda is still a part-successor, an apprentice of sorts to Shah, which reveals the smoothness with which the BJP functions as a political organisation. Moments after the announcement, Nadda pledged his support to the Prime Minister and the party president and acknowledged that the BJP had scaled new heights under their leadership, a tacit admission that he has a task cut out. His reward as BJP working president – a nomenclature that the party has not used in the past – comes as a reward for his political marksmanship in UP, where he was party in charge. The BJP bagged 62 of the 80 seats in the politically critical state. 

Nadda, who headed the health ministry in Modi’s first tenure, is the quintessential organisation man. A three-time MLA, Nadda represents Himachal Pradesh in the Rajya Sabha. The decision to appoint him has come days after the BJP at a meeting of its national office-bearers, decided to carry out a membership drive to increase its members by 20 per cent, followed by the party’s organisational polls. The party will start the drive from July 6, birth anniversary of its founder Syama Prasad Mookerjee. The exercise may take several months to conclude, which means that the BJP may fight assembly elections in three states – Haryana, Jharkhand and Maharashtra – later this year under Shah and Nadda. The announcement is in sharp contrast to the Congress, where there is confusion about who the party president is!