To work as BJP working president under Shah till Assembly polls
Senior BJP leader and former Union Health Minister Jagat Prakash Nadda was on Monday appointed the working president of the BJP with Amit Shah to continue as the party chief until December by when Assembly polls in Maharastra, Haryana and Jharkhand are slated for completion. Sixty-year-old Nadda is expected to become the full-fledged BJP president overseeing the 11-crore-strong party after Shah completes his extended tenure in January 2020.
The announcement was made after the BJP Parliamentary Board, the party’s highest decision-making body, met here at its headquarters with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Shah and Home Minister Rajnath Singh, among others, in attendance.
Shah, who is saddled with the heavy responsibility of Ministry of Home Affairs, would ensure continuity and see the party through the three Assembly polls.
“The BJP won several elections under leadership of Amit Shah. But since the PM appointed him Home Minister, Amit Shah himself said the responsibility of party president should be given to someone else. The BJP parliamentary board has selected JP Nadda as working president,” senior leader and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said after the meeting.
Nadda’s name had figured as party president in the past also when Shah was re-elected party chief in 2016 after having completed the remaining term of his predecessor Rajnath, who demitted his office following his appointment as Union Home Minister in 2014. Nadda is known to be close to Modi and has remained a part of the core team of Modi and Shah.
Nadda was BJP’s UP election in-charge for 2019 Lok Sabha polls, ensuring the party continued with its creditable performance in the State despite the challenge of the SP-BSP mahagathbandhan.
When party veteran Murli Manohar Joshi unfurled the Tricolour at Lal Chowk in Srinagar on January 26, 1992, Nadda, who was newly married then, along some others had reached the venue disguised as gardeners and labourers.
The organisational elections of the BJP from the mandal to State level and culminating in the selection as party president, next year, would commence soon with the party likely to release a notification for it.
The BJP is to set off on its ambitious membership drive from July 6 with a minimum target of 20 per cent addition to its numbers.
Nadda, a member of the Rajya Sabha from Himachal Pradesh and Parliamentary Board Secretary of the BJP was a Minister in the Himachal Pradesh Government.
He was born on December 2, 1960 to Dr Narain Lall Nadda and Shrimati Krishna Nadda. He was educated at St Xaviers School, Patna. Thereafter he did his BA from Patna College, Patna University and LL.B. from Himachal Pradesh University, Shimla.
Nadda was first elected to the Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly in the election of 1993, he was subsequently re-elected in 1998.
Nadda was elected for another term in the 2007 elections. After Prem Kumar Dhumal formed a Government, he inducted Nadda as Cabinet Minister responsible for Forest, Environment, Science and Technology from 2008 to 2010.
He did not seek re-election to the Legislative Assembly in 2012, and instead got elected to the Rajya Sabha. In 2014, during a Cabinet reshuffle, Modi had made Nadda, the Minister of Health.
