Is J P Nadda eying Himachal Pradesh’s political chessboard?

Nadda’s renewed focus on Himachal Pradesh signals a bid to reclaim political agency at home

The Bihar polls have once again highlighted the peculiar position J P Nadda occupies in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s power structure. Despite steering the party organisation through multiple electoral cycles, his presidency — already running on an unusual extension — has increasingly taken on the character of an administrative continuation rather than a fresh political mandate.

In New Delhi, this extended tenure signals both trust and limitation: trust in his organisational discipline, but limitation in the political space available to him amid a tightly centralised high command. It is against this backdrop that Nadda’s renewed and visible engagement with Himachal Pradesh acquires deeper meaning. For a leader who senses the flattening arc of influence at the national level, the hills offer something New Delhi no longer does — a terrain where he can reassert political agency, craft a leadership role grounded in identity rather than appointment, and perhaps script the final, decisive chapter of his long and complicated journey in the BJP.

When Nadda began making frequent rounds of Himachal Pradesh earlier this year — under the guise of overseeing disaster relief — he sparked a wave of speculation across both New Delhi and Shimla. His sudden proximity to his home state after years of national prominence is not without political meaning. Is this an exit plan from the high echelons of New Delhi? Is he positioning himself as the BJP’s face in the 2027 Himachal Assembly elections? If so, what becomes of the state’s existing power players, like Anurag Thakur and Jai Ram Thakur?

What is unfolding is more than just a regional shift. It’s a culmination of decades of slow but deliberate positioning by Nadda — an attempt to reclaim and dominate a state that, despite being his political nursery, has never quite embraced him fully.

From Bilaspur to Delhi

Nadda’s political career began in 1993 when he first won an Assembly seat and quickly rose to become the youngest Leader of the Opposition in Himachal Pradesh. In 1998, he was made the health minister under Prem Kumar Dhumal’s leadership. But beneath the ceremonial collegiality, tensions simmered. His strained relationship with Dhumal would prove decisive.

After a defeat in the 2003 Assembly polls and a rebound in 2008, Nadda chose a route few Himachali leaders have taken: he sidestepped state politics altogether. With backing from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the BJP central leadership, he was sent to the Rajya Sabha in 2012. Behind the scenes, Nitin Gadkari — then BJP president and a long-time ABVP colleague — played a crucial role in that transition. In New Delhi, Nadda matured into a national figure, serving as Union health minister in the first Modi Cabinet and later as the BJP's national president since 2019.

His alliances — particularly with Amit Shah from their early BJYM days — strengthened his hand in New Delhi. But even as he rose, he carried a chip on his shoulder: the need to rewrite the script of Himachal Pradesh politics, to erase the Dhumal legacy, and to establish him as the undisputed kingmaker of the hills.

Poised to return

Nadda’s relationship with the Dhumal family has long been fraught, shaped as much by personal friction as by ideological divergence. Prem Kumar Dhumal was never an RSS man. He remained an outsider to the Sangh’s worldview — secular in temperament, accessible, and more attuned to old-school BJP pragmatism than ideological rigidity.

Groomed in the ABVP, ideologically aligned, and organisationally obedient, Nadda has always drawn his strength from Nagpur’s blessings rather than local mobilisation. This fundamental divide between the two leaders — one shaped by mass politics, the other by cadre politics — widened with time.

Over the past decade, as the RSS tightened its grip on the BJP in Himachal Pradesh, Dhumal’s brand of politics was marginalised. The rise of Jai Ram Thakur, a less assertive, RSS-aligned leader, was a direct reflection of this takeover. Nadda played a pivotal role in this transformation — strategically backing those who would toe the Sangh line and helping sideline leaders who wouldn’t.

Now, such rivals have been effectively removed from the chessboard, Nadda appears poised to return to the state as the culmination of this ideological consolidation.

Face of 2027?

If read correctly, Nadda could well be the BJP’s projected chief ministerial candidate in the 2027 Assembly polls. His recent visibility, including orchestrating events around his father's centenary, was not accidental. He met old BJP stalwarts, evoked his familial and regional roots, and sought to position himself as the unifying figure in a fragmented saffron landscape.

Yet, Nadda’s possible return also raises key questions: Where does this leave Jai Ram Thakur, who still has a support base in Mandi and adjoining areas? More importantly, what about Anurag Thakur, who, despite holding high-profile ministries in New Delhi, has been strategically outflanked time and again?

A Nadda-centric BJP in Himachal would effectively mark the end of both Dhumal and Thakur’s political ascendancy. The power game is not just about ideology — it is deeply personal.

The great disconnect

For all his strategic acumen and party loyalty, Nadda remains a paradox. Despite decades in public life, he has not managed to shed the tag of being an ‘outsider’ in Himachal politics. Born in Patna and raised partly outside the state, his connect with the people of Himachal remains tenuous.

This disconnection is not merely geographic — it is emotional. Nadda lacks the visceral empathy and warmth that mountain politics demands. While his visits during natural disasters are framed as ‘oversight’, they often come across as managerial, devoid of compassion. His inability to organically build a grassroots following in the state despite his national profile speaks volumes.

Even more telling is his electoral vulnerability in Bilaspur. That he has never been a political natural in his home district undermines his claims of representing the pulse of the state. A leader who cannot decisively win his own seat cannot easily inspire confidence as a mass leader.

Pliable or strategic?

Nadda’s critics describe him as weak. He rarely takes a stand independent of the central leadership, seldom asserts his voice in key national debates, and is often seen as a ‘yes man’ to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Shah. This pliability has come at the cost of a distinct identity.

Unlike Gadkari, who is known for his administrative competence, or Rajnath Singh, who retains his political stature, Nadda appears as someone who is always an extension of others’ power. Even during his term as BJP president, the reins never truly felt like they were in his hands.

This same pliancy could become a liability in state politics, where assertiveness, personal credibility, and a visible connect with the electorate matter more than central favour.

Himachal Pradesh’s open field

Ironically, the very vacuum in Himachal's BJP — thanks to the steady marginalisation of regional stalwarts — makes Nadda’s return plausible. The Congress is fragmented, and the BJP’s second line is yet to coalesce around any alternative figure. With Modi nearing the twilight of his premiership, the BJP will need strong state-level actors, and Nadda might just fill that space — not out of mass compulsion, but elite convenience.

Even if he succeeds in capturing the party machinery in Himachal Pradesh, it remains to be seen whether he can win the hearts of a state that has always looked at him as a political transplant.

Nadda’s political story is one of ambition without charisma, positioning without deep popular roots. His journey from Himachal Pradesh to New Delhi, and possibly back again is laced with quiet calculations and unfinished rivalries.

If he does return, it won’t just mark a new chapter in Himachal Pradesh’s political history — it will likely be the final punctuation to a long and uneasy saga with the Dhumal dynasty. It is to be seen if the mountain state will embrace Nadda again.

Tikender Singh Panwar is former deputy mayor, Shimla, and member, Kerala Urban Commission.

Raja Awasthi  is a senior journalist and works with the Himachal Pradesh government

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