BJP working president J.P. Nadda has been elected as the new national president of the party after the election for the top post took place on Monday. Nadda was elected to the post unopposed. Union ministers, including Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari and Shah, and party representatives from states filed nomination papers in Nadda's support. His candidature was endorsed by top party leaders.
Senior BJP leader Radha Mohan Singh, who is the in-charge of the organisational election process, made the announcement at the party headquarters in New Delhi. Outgoing president Amit Shah and other senior leaders congratulated the Himachal Pradesh leader, who had been serving as the party's working president. He will serve for three years at the helm.
His decades-long experience in the organisation, starting from student politics, proximity to the RSS and clean image are seen as his strengths.
The BJP has the convention of electing its president with consensus and without any contest. Nadda's election will put to end incumbent Shah's tenure of over five-and-a-half years during which the BJP expanded its footprints across the country like never before and enjoyed its best phase in electoral contests despite suffering a few setbacks in state polls.
With Shah joining the Modi 2.0 government as home minister, the BJP began the exercise for electing his successor as the party has the convention of 'one person, one post'.
Nadda was appointed as the party's working president in July last year in an indication that the Himachal Pradesh leader was the likely choice for the top organisational job. In the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha election, he was in-charge of the BJP's election campaign in the politically crucial state of Uttar Pradesh, where the party faced a tough challenge from the grand alliance of the Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). The party won 62 out of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh.
Having risen through the saffron ranks, Nadda has long been a member of the BJP parliamentary board, its highest decision making body. He had served as a minister in the first Modi government.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Nadda, who is set to be elected BJP president, will hold a meeting with chief ministers and deputy chief ministers of party-ruled states on Monday evening
-Inputs from PTI
