Post-Bihar jolt, Shah, Nadda hold key BJP meeting

The meeting will be chaired by BJP national president J P Nadda and the general secretary (organisation) BL Santhosh will also be present

Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leaders on Tuesday held a key meeting with the leaders of the party’s Bihar unit, on a day when Nitish Kumar and Tejashwi Yadav Bihar cabinet took oath, to chalk out the future course of action. Discussions were held on the new president of the state unit as well as a wider outreach plan.

Party president Jagat Prasad Nadda, home minister Amit Shah, general secretary (organisation) BL Santhosh, as well as Bihar core committee members including union ministers Ashwini Choubey, Giriraj Singh and Nityanand Rai, senior leaders Ravi Shankar Prasad and Sushil Modi Bihar unit president Sanjay Jaiswal, Tarkishore Prasad, Renu Devi, and Shahnawaz Hussain were present.

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Leaders present at the meeting said that three key issues were discussed; this included the BJP’s strategy going ahead towards the 2024 elections, which will be the first elections the saffron party will face in the state alone. The next Bihar assembly elections is slated to be held in 2025. Which are the key seats that the party will need to focus on, and how do they retain the seats they already have were part of the discussion, the party said. The BJP had won 74 of the 243 seats in the Bihar assembly in the 2020 elections.

Another decision taken was to roll out a wider outreach programme to reach out to the SC, ST and OBC communities. “The party will need to tell them that Nitish Kumar went against their mandate , they need to know how they have been cheated,” said a leader, who was a former minister in the Bihar government.

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The BJP is also likely to change the state president, induct a new leader of Opposition for the Bihar assembly as well as head of the Legislative Council, and discussions were held on the names for these posts. While it remains unclear who will be the party’s state president, the party is keen to give the post to a person from the upper caste or the SC community. Former deputy chief minister Sushil Modi had, in an interview with DH this week, said that both Mandal (indicating backward classes in reference to the Mandal Commission) and the kamandal (meaning a pot of a saint which is indicative of the Hindu vote) are with the BJP.

Modi himself is likely to be given a meatier responsibility in the state since he worked alongside Nitish for years. Sources said that he could be made in charge of the state. Senior party leader and Bihar MLA Nand Kishore Yadav could be made the LoP, sources said.

On August 24, the day when the Nitish Kumar government will have to prove its majority, the BJP is also planning a series of charges against the JD(U)-RJD combine.