Can J P Nadda effect far-reaching changes in BJP?

Jagat Prakash Nadda was anointed as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president on January 20, the eleventh head since its inception in 1980. Not entirely unexpected since he was named as a working president by Amit Shah, his predecessor in June 2019. What does Nadda’s elevation signify? A tectonic shift in the BJP’s functioning and structure or the emergence of a triad with Shah and Narendra Modi as the other two prongs?

If these scenarios are to be enacted, certain settled truths in the BJP’s working would have to be overturned. In Shah, Nadda has supplanted the most successful person to helm the BJP and that makes the challenges before him more daunting.

Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar (2R) greets newly elected BJP President JP Nadda (3R) as Prime Minister Narendra Modi (C) looks on, during a meeting of CM's, in New Delhi, Monday, Jan. 20, 2020. Union Ministers Amit Shah (3L), Rajnath Singh (R) and Nitin Gadkari (2L) are also seen. (PTI Photo)

Doubtless, the seating arrangement on a high table laid out at the BJP headquarters on Monday made for appropriate optics. It was a meeting of the party’s chief ministers and deputy chief ministers. Nadda sat at the head with Prime Minister Modi while Shah and the other ministers occupied places on either side of the table.

If recent history is an index, the arrangement, indicating a status equivalence of the PM and the party president, is notional, unless the latter is an overpowering personality with an overarching mandate to do what he pleases as was Shah. Modi and Shah, whose association goes back a long way to Gujarat, worked as a duopoly with the sort of understanding that eluded the BJP when it was in power at the Centre and had a party to run. Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani were a duo when the BJP-led NDA ruled the Centre though the equation was not as fine-tuned as the one shared by Modi and Shah. Still, singly or in tandem, they ensured that the party remained subservient to the government.

When Bangaru Laxman was appointed the BJP president in Vajpayee’s tenure, primarily because he was a Dalit, his first move was to reach out seriously to the Muslims in ways that were alien to the party. The first political resolution that was adopted at a national executive he presided over in 2000 was expansive on the place that the minorities should have as equal stakeholders in the socio-political and economic order. Laxman was also the first—and the last—president to organise an Iftaar party at the BJP headquarter for Muslims. His statements and gesture triggered enormous resentment down the line and in any case, his tenure was brief.

K Jana Krishnamurthi was not as adventurous as Laxman but when he once spoke up against Mamata Banerjee for “exceeding” her brief when the Trinamool Congress was part of the NDA, Vajpayee cut him down and he was out shortly. It was power signalling at its most unambiguous: There was no way the BJP would be allowed to dominate the government or given a toe-hold in its working.

This template was adopted in the BJP-ruled states. The state president was always subservient to the Chief Minister. Nadda comes in on the eve of the Delhi elections and Delhi is one state unit that Shah, with his political savvy and skills, was unable to straighten out because of multiple leaders, each of who fancies himself or herself as a potentate. Unless the Modi "charisma" holds sway, Delhi is unlikely to go the BJP way. If it loses Delhi for the fifth successive time, the odds are the local leaders will take the rap so that Nadda does not start off on a negative note.

The year 2020 will see Bihar go to polls. The BJP has a tricky ally to handle in the Janata Dal (United) and Nitish Kumar so it will be Modi and Shah who will do the heavy lifting in the crucial election rather than Nadda, as they will in West Bengal, the next big battle for the BJP in 2021. Shah has already etched the contours of the fight in West Bengal because to him its outcome will likely decide the BJP’s course for the next Lok Sabha election in 2024 rather than Uttar Pradesh, where the Opposition has not got its act together.

A new president would entail changes in the organisation. While quite a few state presidents have been re-nominated—notably Dilip Ghosh in West Bengal—it’s Nadda’s central team that will be of interest if only to see if he gets the latitude to pick his own persons. The general secretaries, who constitute the most important tier in the organisational hierarchy after the president, presently have two of Shah’s cherry-picked men, notably Bhupender Yadav and Anil Jain. Yadav and Jain are regarded as his eyes and ears.

Like Shah, Nadda is also a product of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad or ABVP, the RSS’s student wing. His soft-spoken manner gave an impression that he might try and blunt the sharp edges of the rhetoric and style of his predecessor. Make no mistake. In a recent public meeting, he sounded every bit as strident and uncompromising on the citizenship law and policies as Shah. The 'hardline' is a given in the BJP. At best, Nadda may have the elbow space to tweak the organisation, if that.

(Radhika Ramaseshan is a Delhi based political analyst and columnist)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author’s own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.