Immediate challenges lined up for Nadda

KV Prasad

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 20

The appointment of Jagat Prakash Nadda as the new president of the BJP today was in the works over the last few months. To be precise, since the induction of his immediate predecessor Amit Shah as the Union Home Minister in the Modi Cabinet, the transition was in the making.

Nadda comes to office with a rare distinction of being one of the few leaders in contemporary landscape who cut his teeth in student politics, moved up the ladder and eventually became the chief of a national party. While his accession to the top of the BJP appears smooth, the journey as the leader of what is the largest political party in the world comes with few immediate tasks and challenges.

During the Modi government 1.0, Shah fired the imagination of party workers to rally behind every policy move of PM Narendra Modi and dexterously wove the narrative of ‘vikas’ to reach home to voters and tell them how social welfare measures of the ‘sarkar’ bought about a qualitative transformation in their lives.

Nadda, whose name did the rounds back in 2014 as a possible BJP chief, is assuming leadership when the government is facing a challenge over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and disquiet over developments in Jammu and Kashmir post the abrogation of Article 370.

On the political plane, while the BJP does not realistically require support from allies, the breaking away of the Shiv Sena, one of its two original allies, and the fabric of friendship with the Shiromani Akali Dal coming under some strain, Nadda will have to summon deftness to handle those still around.

Shah carved out a niche as a no-nonsense and committed leader who converted the BJP into a well-oiled election-winning machine. Having stepped into his shoes, Nadda’s leadership traits would be on test immediately in the elections to the state Assemblies of Delhi and Bihar this year.

Delhi, in 2015, stalled the BJP juggernaut that began to roll under PM Modi and Amit Shah. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) led by Arvind Kejriwal hopes denizens of the national capital would vote in its favour on February 8. In Bihar, the BJP lost to the unusual combination of the Rashtriya Janata Dal-Janata Dal (United), which later came unstuck, resulting in the BJP coming back to share power with Nitish Kumar’s JD-U.

Next year, Assam, Kerala, West Bengal, Puducherry and Tamil Nadu go to the polls. Under Shah, the BJP did not hide it is exerting every sinew in its effort to wrest power in Bengal while Assam remains sullen over the National Register of Citizens.

The new BJP chief would have to bring all his political training to walk on the razor’s edge and continue to enjoy the trust and confidence of PM Modi and Shah.