JP Nadda to share Amit Shah’s workload as BJP president

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday appointed Jagat Prakash Nadda as the working president of the party. The move came following long deliberations at BJP parliamentary board meeting in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and current BJP president and union home minister Amit Shah.

Both Modi and Shah left Parliament in the afternoon to attend the Parliamentary Board's Meet. Other board members – Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Sushma Swaraj, Ramlal, Thawar Chand Gehlot, Shivraj Singh Chouhan were also present at the meeting that unanimously decided chose JP Nadda.

"BJP won several elections under leadership of Amit Shah Ji. But since PM appointed him Home Minister, Amit Shah Ji himself said the responsibility of party president should be given to someone else. BJP Parliamentary board has selected JP Nadda as working president," said Rajnath Singh after Nadda's appointment.

BJP party sources said, Amit Shah wanted to share the organisational duties with someone as he is too much preoccupied with is responsibility as the union home minister.

A party leader said, the party also wanted to stick to the norm of one person one post that it often cites as its hallmark principle of internal party democracy. Shah is expected to continue as the President till the next organisational elections that are currently being debated within the party.

The organisational elections are expected to take place once the assembly elections in key states of Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir and Delhi get over.

Nadda, 59, was union health minister in the previous government and currently is a Rajya Sabha member and also BJP's parliamentary board secretary. He comes from strong RSS and Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad background and is considered close to the current dispensation. He is known to keep a low profile and gets things done amicably without ruffling many feathers.

In the current capacity, Nadda will be helping Shah in devising BJP's election strategy for the upcoming state assembly poll. The party had made him in-charge of Uttar Pradesh in the recently concluded Lok sabha elections where the BJP proving all poll forecasts wrong bagged 62 out of 80 seats against the combined might of BSP-SP-RLD aliance.