State polls first task for Nadda A master strategist who increased BJP’S footprint
Selecting his new team, fending off accusations of fostering polarisation in the country and building bridges with allies will be among the first challenges facing the BJP chief
NEWDELHI:THE transition that took place with Jagat Prakash Nadda’s elevation as the Bharatiya Janata Party president will be closely watched for several reasons with key among them being the selection of his new team and how the party will do in the assembly elections in Delhi next month and Bihar months later.
The term of Nadda’s predecessor, Amit Shah, who became the BJP’S youngest president, ended in January 2019. But he continued to hold the position as the organisational elections in the states, a prerequisite for the new national president’s selection, had not been concluded. The party under Shah saw a surge in its membership and made inroads into states beyond its traditional bastions.
Nadda’s role will be closely watched when the BJP is trying hard to fend off accusations of fostering polarisation. The protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, the proposed National Register of Citizens and faltering economy are issues that confront the party. The issues are expected to have electoral ramifications in state elections in West Bengal and Bihar. The state elections are crucial for the party following a string of losses in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan in 2018 and Jharkhand last month.
Nadda, 59, will have the task of building bridges with allies, some of whom have made their differences public, particularly after the oldest ally, Shiv Sena, ended its alliance with the BJP to form the government in Maharashtra with the Nationalist Congress Party and Congress last year.
“Working as a national president requires working with a broader perspective, and diverse regional political interest groups. The north is different from the northeast, the west from the south. So, that will be a challenge facing the new president,” said Milind Awad, a professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University.
BJP functionaries HT spoke to said Nadda will bring with him organisational skills he honed first as Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad general secretary and later as a BJP functionary in Himachal Pradesh. He will follow Shah’s template for growth, but will have a working style that will set him apart, they added.
“Nadda is a hard-working, patient and affable personality. He keeps a low profile, but is proficient in skills required for leading an organisation based on ideology yet made up of diverse people. His style of functioning will not be overshadowed by that of his predecessors,” said a leader familiar with Nadda’s style.
While comparisons are inevitable, party leaders said, they are expecting Nadda, who was first appointed as the party’s working president in June 2019, to continue the processes established by the “[Prime Minister Narendra] Modi-shah duo”.
“It is the Prime Minister and Shah who galvanised workers and led the party to its current position. Nadda will complement the duo. It will be a successful troika,” said a second functionary. The reappointment of several state unit presidents, who were appointed during Shah’s tenure, is being perceived as an indication that his writ will continue to run.
BJP leader Murlidhar Rao said the party will make the most of the gains made under Shah and added there will be collaborative efforts between the old and the new guard to keep the party’s momentum going.
“Shah had a free hand for five years and it was under his watch that party won several state elections and the last Lok Sabha polls. For the new president, his...experience and tremendous knowhow will be an added asset. He can reach out for advice and assistance and that will be the extent to which Shah’s influence will continue.”
Several leaders said that Nadda’s “man-management skills” and “cordiality” will prove advantageous. “He has a sharp mind, is a good listener and can work without creating waves…sometimes that is also necessary to bind people,” said the second functionary.
Nadda, who served as the Union health minister during Modi’s first term, belongs to a Brahmin family from Himachal Pradesh. He began his political career as a student leader in Bihar, where his father, N L Nadda, served as Patna University’s vice-chancellor.
According to Nadda’s biodata on the Rajya Sabha website, he was inspired by the Bihar students’ movement in 1974 (also called JP movement) before his association with the ABVP and BJP’S youth wing, which he also headed.
(With inputs from Amandeep Shukla)
NEW DELHI: To a party colleague’s question on why he prefers quick decision making over longdrawn-out deliberations, Amit Shah is learnt to have said, “If I don’t take quick decisions then I won’t get things done...my style is to work on instinct, take quick decisions then work hard to prove the decision right.”
As he steps down as the president of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Shah’s tenure is marked by many such decisions. Many worked, resulting in him being hailed as a master strategist; some didn’t, resulting in the party facing criticism. Still, it can’t be denied that it was under Shah’s watch that the party expanded, in terms of the number of members, national footprint, and its strength in Parliament.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi acknowledged as much on Monday when JP Nadda took over as party president from Shah in a planned move. “I do not think words can do justice to the rich contribution of @Amitshah Ji as @Bjp4india President. During his presidency, BJP got opportunities to serve in several parts of India. We also got our highest ever tally in a Parliamentary election. He is an outstanding Karyakarta,” the PM tweeted.
Shah was first appointed as the party president in 2014, when the then party chief, Rajnath Singh, was elevated as the Union home minister following the BJP’S success in the Lok Sabha elections. That performance was predicated around the party almost sweeping Uttar Pradesh, which sends the most representatives to Parliament. Shah had overseen the campaign in the state.
That appointment was for the rest of Singh’s term and Shah was given charge as the president for a full term on January 24, 2016.
That stint came soon after the party lost elections in Bihar and Delhi and amid murmurs that its golden run could be on the wane.
“That is when he decided to go back to the grassroots…he emphasised that the party will have to revive the cadre, go back to its strength of presence at the booth level and borrow from the Sangh’s (RSS) door-to-door outreach,” said a party colleague who asked not to be named.
The result was an ambitious membership drive that took the number of members from a little over 20 million to nearly 100 million by 2019. And the result was an emphasis on winning everything from Panchayat to Parliament.the party scripted electoral successes in states such as Assam, where it won for the first time (which gave it a foothold in the Northeast). It subsequently formed governments in Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya. It persuaded the ruling parties in Sikkim and Mizoram to join the North East Democratic Alliance led by the BJP.
“There was apprehension among the minorities in the Northeast that BJP would appropriate their culture and lifestyle and impose hardline Hindutva. But the party has been able to reach out to minorities as well,” said a BJP leader from the North East who asked not to be named. There was much talk about Shah’s unorthodox choices, which saw a person from the Other Backward Classes being appointed party president in UP (between 2016 and 2017); a nonmaratha being appointed chief minister in Maharashtra; and even an alliance with an ideological opponent, the PDP, to form the government in Jammu and Kashmir. All this was justified as a means of strengthening the party and winning polls.
Bhupinder Yadav, a party general secretary and a Rajya Sabha MP, also a confidant of Shah, said that during the latter’s tenure “the party undertook the biggest ever membership drive, owing to which it now has over 100 million members, which is the highest for any party in the world; the party also saw a geographical expansion under his charge from the north-east of India to the south.”
The party also set up offices in every district making clear its ambitions of building a pan-india presence. “…In terms of organisational strength, he took major steps,” said Yadav.
A BJP member from the south, where the BJP has not been as successful, recalled how Shah insisted on daily reporting from the states. “He led the campaign in Kerala against the Left. He has been pushing the cadre to carve their space in the political scene dominated by regional parties.”
Shah’s tenure also saw the BJP becoming the second most powerful party in West Bengal. The party won 18 Lok Sabha seats in 2019 and now has its eyes set on the 2021 state elections.
In their book on Shah, Anirban Ganguly and Shiwanand Dwivedi detail the mass contact programmes popularised by Shah. “…In his quest for expanding BJP’S footprint, Shah covered more than 7,90,000 km between August 2014 and September 2018 undertaking major outreach programmes...”
Ideologically, Shah, who has never hidden his RSS roots, is credited for striking a balance between the ideological demands of the Sangh and political compulsions. A senior RSS functionary said that Shah remains committed to the Sangh’s larger ideology and was instrumental in fulfilling a long-pending dream of nullifying Article 370.
Vijay Chauthaiwale, who was roped in to head the BJP’S Overseas Cell by Shah, said there is more to Shah than just his abilities as an electoral strategist. “He also has a good understanding of history, culture, India’s heritage and his interests are diverse.”
Some have criticised Shah and Modi for seeking to centralise leadership and say this may be responsible for losses in some states. Political analyst, Neelanjan Sarkar, sees the centralisation as a bid to retain complete control and prevent factionalism.
“There has been a sidelining of many senior leaders. What they have also done at the state levels is prop up relatively unknown faces as CMS because they don’t want any factionalism. This is something that Indira Gandhi would have done in the 1970s. So in order to prevent factionalism at the central level they have made sacrifices at the state level,” he said.