The Bharatiya Janata Party yesterday named Jagat Prakash Nadda as its working president, while Home Minister Amit Shah will continue to be the party chief.
Addressing a press conference after the party’s parliamentary board meeting at the BJP headquarters here, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said: “At the meeting today, Amit Shah said that he was unable to give enough time to the party as he was also in charge of the Home Ministry. So it was decided that the party president’s post should be given to some other person.
“But the board members urged Shah to continue as president till the BJP’s membership drive and elections get over,” Singh said.
However, Shah insisted on his replacement, so the board decided that Nadda should be made the working president, Singh said.
Shah was elected to the Lok Sabha won from Gandhinagar in Gujarat recently. He was appointed home minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.
Nadda, a former federal Health and Family Welfare minister, is a member of the Rajya Sabha from Himachal Pradesh and BJP Parliamentary Board secretary.
Nadda, 58, has his roots in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its affiliates.
The former minister Nadda, who rose from the ranks of an ABVP leader, has carved his own space in national politics with his low profile and shrewd organisational skills, his aides say.
In the recently-concluded Lok Sabha elections, Nadda scripted the BJP’s stupendous show in Uttar Pradesh by working as a backroom leader.
He has been active on the national political scene since 2010 when he was picked by then BJP chief Nitin Gadkari to join his new team. He was then made the party’s national general secretary.
Born on December 2, 1960, Nadda completed his graduation from Patna and holds a postgraduate degree in political science and an LLB degree from the Himachal Pradesh University in Shimla.
His father Narain Lall Nadda was the vice-chancellor of Patna University.
Starting his political career in 1978 as a student leader of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), Nadda had worked with Gadkari and Shah in the party’s youth wing – the Bharatiya Yuva Morcha – from 1991 to 1994.
His wife Mallika Nadda, who teaches history at the Himachal Pradesh University, was also an ABVP activist and served as its national general secretary from 1988 to 1999.
Nadda: new BJP working president
