The task is cut out for Nitin Nabin and his new team. Barely a week after the announcement, which carried some surprises and a rejig, the BJP has moved on three familiar fronts: organisation, ideology and outreach.
On the organisation front, Nabin's new team has 13 vice-presidents, eight general secretaries and 16 secretaries, with Union minister Piyush Goyal as treasurer. Only Vinod Tawde and Sunil Bansal have been retained from the previous team. Of total 65 members, 51 are new faces.
Uttar Pradesh has received particular attention. Eight leaders with links to the state are part of the national team. Tawde, who was earlier in charge of Bihar, where the party won and now has its own Chief Minister, was made the Uttar Pradesh in-charge within a day of the announcement. The state will vote in 2027, and the BJP has several issues to handle, including dissatisfaction among some sections of its support base and the controversy over the theft of donations at the Ram Temple in Ayodhya.
The new team also brings experienced leaders back into important roles. Smriti Irani, who lost Amethi in 2024, has returned as a national general secretary. Vasundhara Raje remains a vice-president. Ram Madhav has also returned as a vice-president. These appointments suggest that the BJP is looking for leaders with experience of elections, government and organisation rather than changing the team simply for the sake of bringing in younger faces.
The bigger challenge is outside the party organisation. Earlier this year, the BJP was caught off guard by protests at Jantar Mantar involving large numbers of young people. Many of them organised and communicated through reels, memes and other social media platforms.
The party has responded by changing its digital team. Amit Malviya, who headed the BJP's IT cell for more than a decade, has been replaced by Deepak Mhaskey, along with four deputies who have been active users of social media.
The first big push on ideology is expected to be around nationalism, an issue on which the BJP has traditionally been comfortable and aggressive, and one that has paid it dividends during elections. At its first meeting under the new team, the BJP passed a resolution, defending the full six-stanza rendition of Vande Mataram. It came after the Congress reaffirmed that it would sing only the first two stanzas at its events, a practice it traces to 1937.
The BJP called the Congress decision an insult to the song's history and announced a nationwide campaign to explain its history and role in the freedom struggle, with particular attention to young people. The party is also making the song's legal and constitutional status part of the argument.
On the third aspect, outreach, the BJP is learnt to have set up a dedicated Gen Z outreach team. The aim is to create a more direct conversation with young people and understand their concerns, rather than simply use social media to send out the party's message. Here, Smriti Irani and Tawde are expected to lead the charge.
The other major part of the BJP's outreach is the celebration of Narendra Modi's 25 years in government. October 7 will mark 25 years since Modi became Gujarat Chief Minister in 2001. He became Prime Minister in 2014. The BJP plans to mark the occasion with a nationwide Seva Sankalp Mahotsav beginning on September 7.
The programme will include blood donation camps, cleanliness drives, health camps, exhibitions and events aimed at young people. The BJP wants to use the anniversary to present Modi's political career as a long period of public service.
That will also be a challenge. Many members of Gen Z and Gen Alpha were too young to remember the early years of Modi's political career. The BJP now has to explain why that history should matter to them today.
Nabin himself began his tenure as party president after strong election performances in West Bengal and Assam, but then faced a loss at Bankipur, the Bihar constituency he vacated, and the protests at Jantar Mantar. His new team will have to deal with several such challenges, including conversations around employment and price rise.
The BJP has experienced leaders, a familiar nationalism narrative and a new effort to reach younger voters. The question is how these parts of the strategy work in the big tests ahead, starting with Uttar Pradesh. The party would require a massive victory in these polls to be able to argue that the challenges were temporary. Its effort to cobble together numbers to get the delimitation Bill passed in Parliament is also being keenly watched.
The new team, therefore, has little time to settle in before the BJP's next set of political tests begins.
