Controlled leadership: The BJP now follows Congress

The era of powerful leaders heading major national parties, like the BJP and Congress, has ended, marking a new chapter in Indian politics

After a wait of nearly two years, the BJP finally got its new national president last month with the formal appointment of Nitin Nabin as the successor of JP Nadda. Although the BJP would prefer to term it an election, the fact remains that the BJP has never held an election for its president, as it was formed in 1980. The process is simple: identify someone to head the party and get that person to file the nomination. No other nomination is filed against that person. Thus, the selected candidate is declared elected unopposed.

The BJP is not the only party to appoint its president. But for the Congress party, it is difficult to recollect which other national or regional party actually voted for the top post. Voting was not planned in the Congress but forced, as leaders like Jitendra Prasada and Shashi Tharoor, who refused to go by the script, filed their nominations and were defeated by huge margins.

Almost 22 years after Prasada had challenged Sonia Gandhi in 2000, Tharoor filed his nomination against the Gandhis’ chosen nominee, Mallikarjun Kharge, and faced defeat by a big margin. He dared to challenge and is now facing the challenge from within.

If the Congress can claim to be more democratic than the BJP for electing two presidents over the past quarter of a century, the BJP can claim not to stick to a family or their nominee. Over the past 28 years, since Sonia Gandhi took over as the Congress president following the controversial ouster of her predecessor Sitaram Kesri in 1998, Congress has had three presidents. Besides Sonia Gandhi’s record-breaking 22 years of presidency, her son Rahul Gandhi’s two years at the helm, and Mallikarjun Kharge holding the fort since 2022.

During this period, the BJP has had 10 presidents, and none have been related to each other or belonged to any family or dynasty. This, however, does not mean that everything has been crystal clear in the BJP. There have been behind-the-scenes politics, leading to the appointments and ousters of several of them. During this period, the BJP has been dominated by a mentor and his protégé—Lal Krishna Advani and Narendra Modi.

Advani had created what the BJP is today and had pulled the party out of the margins to the national mainstream. However, the fact remains that he did not give anyone total command of the party even when he did not hold the post. Dr Murli Manohar Joshi, the BJP’s third president after Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Advani, is a prime example of it. Joshi’s ambitions clashed with Advani’s. He held the post for a brief period of 1991 to 1993, and had to make way for Advani’s return.

After Advani’s second stint ended in 1998, several leaders were appointed as the party’s president, but none could serve the full term. They included Kushabhau Thakre (1998-2000), Bangaru Laxman (2000-2001), Jana Krishnamurthi (2001-2002), and M Venkaiah Naidu (2002-2004). Advani returned as the BJP president for the third time in 2004.

However, he too had to step down in 2005, amidst his controversial statement describing Muhammad Ali Jinnah as a secular leader. Thereafter, Rajnath Singh (2005-2009) and Nitin Gadkari (2009-2013) served as the party heads, but they lacked the aura and charisma of Advani, who had started fading away, coinciding with the rise of Narendra Modi as the most powerful leader of the BJP.

Rajnath Singh was serving his second term at the helm since 2013 but had to step down after being made a minister in the Modi government in 2014, heralding the era of total control of what is termed the Gujarat lobby. Rajnath Singh was replaced by Amit Shah, who served for six years as the BJP president between 2014 and 2020. Shah had to move out due to the provisions of one individual being prohibited from holding the post for more than two consecutive terms in the BJP constitution.

Modi and Shah got their close confidant, Jagat Prakash Nadda, who served as the BJP president from 2020 until 2026. Nadda’s tenure was supposed to end in 2024, but selecting his successor proved to be an arduous task. Several names were considered, discussed, and rejected before the party named Nitin Nabin as its new president in January this year.

Probably, he is the least known name that holds the highest BJP post. But he is there for a purpose. He has been brought from Bihar, where he was serving as a minister, to ensure the party is headed by a low-profile leader, who, like Kharge in Congress, would not get too big for his boots. The era of powerful leaders heading major national parties has ended, marking a new chapter in Indian politics.

Nabin’s elevation has nothing to do with promoting the third-generation leadership in the BJP, as he is not the only low-profile leader handpicked for a particular job. The same pattern was played out in selecting chief ministers of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Odisha, and Delhi, where the most known and deserving leaders were overlooked, and little-known leaders were given charge to run the governments, allegedly, to prevent the emergence of anyone who could become a threat to Modi and Shah in the near future.

AJAY JHA