State BJP will get new president as the current most successful Gujarat BJP president, RC Faldu’s term is completing in next month. As per the State BJP constitution, no party president can continue for more than two terms.
During the tenure of Faldu, the BJP registered the biggest ever win for the party in Gujarat in the history of lok Sabha elections. The saffron brigade won all 26 parliamentary constituencies in May 2014 lok Sabha elections. The previous record was 20 seats when Keshubhai Patel was the Chief Minister of Gujarat in 1999. Besides, the party also won 2012 Assembly elections, when he was president.
Interestingly, from November 2014 to April 2015, all the primary BJP members in Gujarat will resign and again take membership. This six months period is traditionally celebrated as ‘Sangathan Parv’ (Organisational festivities). Sangathan Parv will begin with appointment of State in-charge and two co-in-charges. later on, district level in-charges will also be appointed. They would be given the status of election officer to elect the new party president in the State and would kick-start election procedure for electing the new president.
Terms of all primary members in Gujarat BJP is six years, which will end next month. As of now, there are over 42 lakh primary members in Gujarat BJP. As national party president — Amit Shah — hails from Gujarat the senior BJP leaders have decided to break all the previous records in membership registration in coming days.
Sources in the State unit of the saffron party said that former Health Minister in Modi Government in Gujarat IK Jadeja and Education Minister in the Anandiben Government Bhupendrasinh Chudasama —both Kshtriya leaders — are frontrunner for the president’s post. Current Gujarat BJP president Faldu belongs to the Patel community. Despite names of Jadeja and Chudasama are making rounds, BJP members believe that there would be last minute suspense as both Amit Shah and Narendra Modi are known to throw surprises.
In October 2015 elections of Gram Panchayat, taluka Panchayat and district Panchayat are scheduled. Besides, elections of local bodies are also pending. The new State BJP chief will have the responsibility to lead the party to victory along with the Chief Minister Anandiben Patel.