JP Nadda gets extension as BJP president, to hold charge till Lok Sabha elections 2024

Jagat Prakash Nadda had assumed the BJP presidency in January 2020 (PTI file image)

The tenure of BJP president JP Nadda has been extended till June 2024, the party announced on January 17. The decision allows Nadda to preside over the party as it heads into the high-stake Lok Sabha elections, that is expected to be held between March and May next year.

Nadda also has his task cut out for 2023, as the BJP would contest nine state assembly elections under his leadership. The party is heading the government in three of these nine provinces, and shares power as a junior ally in three others.

The first to go to polls this year would be the Northeastern provinces of Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya, where the elections are expected in around March. This would be followed by Karnataka, where the polls are likely to be held in April-May.

Towards 2023-end, the Hindi belt states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, along with the Northeastern state of Mizoram, are slated for elections.

Also Read | Gear up for nine assembly polls in 2023, JP Nadda tells BJP executive members

The BJP currently holds a single-party majority in Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh, and leads the government in Tripura along with ally IPFT. In Meghalyala, Nagaland and Mizoram, it is a junior partner in the government headed by regional allies.

The party is eyeing to oust traditional rival Congress from power in Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, and defeat the K Chandrasekara Rao-led Bharatiya Rashtra Samithi in Telangana.

Nadda, while addressing party leaders during the BJP national executive meeting on January 16, said their efforts must be directed to ensure a win in all the nine poll-bound states.

Nadda, 62, belongs to Himachal Pradesh, where he had served as a cabinet minister between 2007 and 2012. In 2014, he was appointed as the Union health minister. In 2019, after the Narendra Modi government was re-elected, Nadda was not included in the Cabinet as the BJP decided to entrust the party's responsibility to him.

In June 2019, Nadda was appointed as the BJP's working president. And in January 2020, he was given the full-time party president charge. Nadda's predecessor to the post was BJP veteran Amit Shah, under whose tenure the party recorded decisive victories in the 2014 and 2019 general elections.

Under Nadda's tenure, the BJP lost Delhi assembly elections, but managed to increase its vote share and legislative strength in Bihar in 2020 polls. In the following year, the party led a high-octane campaign West Bengal in a bid to dislodge the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress. Although Banerjee scored a decisive win, the BJP increased its MLA-count from three in 2016 to 77 in the elections held last year.

In 2022, the BJP succeeded in retaining power in Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous and bellwether state. The party also became the first-ever to retain power in Uttarakhand after a completing a five-year term. In Gujarat, it recorded the biggest-ever victory, becoming the only party to win more than 150 out of the state's 182 seats.

However, in Himachal Pradesh, Nadda's home state, the Congress managed to wrest power in a closely-contested election.

The extension in Nadda's tenure as the BJP chief also comes months after the Congress, the country's prime opposition party, elected veteran leader Mallikarjun Kharge as its new president.