New Delhi: With BJP organisational architect Amit Shah set to join the Cabinet, the decks are being cleared for the baton to be handed over to JP Nadda as the new party president. Nadda is expected to work closely with Shah even after the latter demits office as there are upcoming elections in a few states.
Once the Union Budget is out of the way July 10 (in all probability), then sometime in September this year, three states will go to the polls. They are Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Haryana.
Nadda will oversee the election campaign strategies for the three states. Thereafter there is a possibility of polls in Jammu and Kashmir and also in Karnataka where the coalition seems to be skating on thin ice. Early next year, it will be a prestige battle as Delhi goes to polls. The BJP will certainly want to dethrone AAP from its presence position of power.
Fifty nine-year-old Nadda is a Brahmin and a Rajya Sabha member who keeps a low profile but is also parliamentary board secretary of the BJP. Nadda is known as a master strategist in his party. The party had given him charge of Uttar Pradesh in the recently-concluded hustings. BJD bagged 62 out of 80 Lok Sabha seats while its ally Apna Dal got two against a caste calculus driven combine of BSP and SP.
Nadda now has to meet the exacting standards set by Amit Shah. With the BJP securing a fresh beach head in the south in Telengana where it has won four seats along with 23 in Karnataka, Nadda is expected to focus on operations there to expand the BJP’s footprint.
At a meeting with senior office-bearers of the party earlier this month, Nadda, had predicted that the BJP would register a handsome win in the Lok Sabha polls and all records will be broken. It turned out to be quite correct.
IANS