Who will be the next BJP president?

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s below-par performance in the Lok Sabha elections seems to have knocked it off its high horse. From declaring that the BJP had outgrown the RSS to huddling with the RSS over the choice of BJP president must have been a journey full of political lessons—how the mighty Modi–Shah duo and their cronies have been humbled.

Modi, you may recall, hasn’t had a single one-on-one meeting with RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat during the past 10 years. Yet, on 12 August, Shah and BJP general secretary B.L. Santhosh were closeted with RSS general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale and joint general secretary Arun Kumar for five hours, at defence minister Rajnath Singh’s residence.

The meeting came ahead of the crucial three-day coordination meeting of the two organisations in Palakkad, Kerala, starting on 31 August.

Jagat Prakash Nadda’s term as national president of the BJP ended in January but was extended by six months before the parliamentary elections. The extension period ended on 30 June, and here we are well into the second half of August, with nary a sign of a new president. Why? Because the BJP leadership hasn’t yet found a candidate that the RSS approves of.

Keeping Chouhan at bay

The RSS’s first choice as Nadda’s successor was former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. But Modi didn’t want another formidable OBC leader breathing down his neck, so Chouhan was inducted into the Union cabinet as agriculture minister.

The BJP has proposed a working president until a mutually satisfactory full-timer is found. The frontrunners on their list are Maharashtra deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis, former Union minister Anurag Thakur, UP state organising secretary Sunil Bansal and the BJP’s national general secretary Vinod Tawde.

Interestingly, Fadnavis hails from the Sangh HQ in Nagpur and Sunil Bansal was an RSS pracharak before being drafted first into its student wing, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), before he was loaned full time to the BJP.

RSS plans to recall organising secretaries

The RSS is not happy with any of the names the BJP has suggested as candidates for the next party president. In fact, it is so exasperated with its volunteers being drafted into the BJP that it wants to withdraw all the organising secretaries (a BJP post reserved by convention for RSS people) from the states as well as national-level appointees. This move has sent BJP leaders into a tizzy as it could mean a further fraying of relations with the Sangh with uncertain consequences.

In June, Karnataka state organising secretary G.V. Rajesh was recalled by the RSS. Kerala organising secretary K. Subhash Kannoth, who was with the BJP for the past 11 years, was recalled on 20 July. He has been replaced by M. Ganeshan. The current national organising secretary B.L. Santosh is also likely to recalled as he has been harbouring ambitions of becoming chief minister of Karnataka.

The RSS brass is of the opinion that pracharaks drafted into the BJP to coordinate between the two organisations end up becoming more loyal to the latter, seduced by power and its accoutrements. Narendra Modi was a pracharak loaned to the BJP in the late 1980s; the Sangh doesn’t want to create another Modi.

The real reason for the delay

And so, the impasse continues. BJP spokespersons have been dishing out lame reasons for the delay, such as, ‘Our party constitution mandates the completion of organisational elections in at least 60 per cent of the state units before we can hold elections for our national president. Since we were all busy with Lok Sabha elections during the past six months, we could not conduct state polls in many states.’

Only four or five states have completed their organisational elections so far. Completing the mandated 60 per cent might very well take until the end of the year, with the party focusing all heads and hands on the state assembly elections in Jammu & Kashmir, Haryana, Jharkhand and Maharashtra. Hence the proposal for a working president who can attend to day-to-day business.

Status quo

Meanwhile, nothing seems to have changed. Last week, Nadda appointed prabharis (in-charges and co-in-charges) for 23 states, as well as the coordinator and joint coordinator for the northeastern states. In other words, his tenure might be over but he will keep calling the shots—on behalf of Modi–Shah, of course—until a suitable successor is found.

Earlier, senior BJP member Subramanian Swamy had threatened to take the party to court for not holding ‘internal elections’ and the extension of Nadda’s term in violation of the party constitution. Swamy had written to the Election Commission about this on 6 February 2024.

Within two weeks, the BJP national convention amended the party constitution, authorising the parliamentary board to make decisions about the president—including tenure and extensions thereof—in emergencies. Now the parliamentary board has the power to give Nadda yet another extension, which has not been done officially for reasons only the top brass will know.

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THE FRONTRUNNERS

Sunil Bansal: Bansal came into the limelight in 2003 when he managed the Rajasthan assembly elections under Pramod Mahajan’s tutelage. In 2013, he was shifted to UP, where the BJP won 71 of 80 seats in 2014. In 2024, Bansal did it again in Odisha, managing 19 of 21 seats. A record that may make him the best bet.

Devendra Fadnavis: Deputy CM of Maharashtra, Fadnavis’ recent meeting with PM Modi suggests he might well be the chosen one. If he moves to Delhi to step into Nadda’s shoes, he would be the second party president from Nagpur after Nitin Gadkari. The BJP’s poor performance in Maharashtra may, however, go against him.

Vinod Tawde: National general secretary Tawde began his political career as an active member of the ABVP. He went on to become general secretary at state level, as well as leader of opposition in the legislative council between 2011 and 2014. A powerful Maratha leader, he is known to be close to the Modi–Shah duo.

Anurag Thakur: From president of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) to national BJP president would be a great leap for this five-time MP from Hamirpur, though two successive party presidents from the same state (Himachal Pradesh) might not go down well.