How JP Nadda beat contenders Bhupendra Yadav, OP Mathur for BJP chief's post after Amit Shah took charge of home ministry in NDA-II

Editor’s note: This piece was originally published on 2 June, 2019. This has been republished in the light of JP Nadda taking over charge as full-time president of the Bharatiya Janata Party from Union home minister Amit Shah. Amid congratulations for the Cabinet Ministers of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s second term, speculations are rife about who will take charge of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as president after Amit Shah. Shah was named the home minister in the NDA-II Cabinet, and is likely to resign from the post soon in keeping with the ‘one-person-one-post’ principle of the ruling party. BJP leader JP Nadda emerged as the front-runner for the post of BJP president after he was left out of the Union Council of Ministers. Nadda, a leader from Himachal Pradesh, is reportedly trusted by the party’s top brass and the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh — the party’s ideological parent — and is known for a ‘clean’ reputation. He was the health minister in Modi’s first tenure. [caption id=“attachment_6304111” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File photo of JP Nadda. Twitter/@BJP4India[/caption] The 58-year-old Nadda maintains a low profile, which could work in his favour, as the new party president will be expected to run the organisation in cohesion with the government and carry on with organisational agenda firmed up by Shah, PTI reported. He is a member of the BJP’s parliamentary board, which is the party’s top decision-making body having its most important members, that gives him requisite seniority for the job as well, party sources were quoted by the report as saying. Nadda was also slated to be Himachal Pradesh chief minister in 2017, after the defeat of another BJP leader Prem Kumar Dhumal. However, that was not possible due to the political equations in the state. A profile of Nadda by News18 notes, “Known for his managerial skills, Nadda didn’t get knocked down. Instead, he ensured that his confidante Jairam Thakur makes it to the post. Nadda still continues to enjoy a strong hand in state politics like he does at the Centre. The victory in Uttar Pradesh, where he was the in-charge, is a testament to his strategy making skills.” Another likely contender for the post is BJP national general secretary and Rajya Sabha MP Bhupendra Yadav. Yadav was appointed the state in-charge of Bihar and Gujarat for the Lok Sabha election 2019. Both states delivered a landslide victory to the Narendra Modi-led party. A contemporary of Modi and Rajnath Singh in the BJP, OP Mathur is also a possible candidate for the post of the party’s president. He is a BJP leader from Rajasthan and is the party’s in-charge of Gujarat. He worked closely with Modi in the Assembly elections in 2007 and 2012. The party will also look for new presidents for its Uttar Pradesh and Bihar units as their current heads, Mahendra Nath Pandey and Nityanand Rai respectively, have been inducted in the Union Council of Ministers. With inputs from agencies