The current BJP President JP Nadda is currently on an extension and his successor should be announced anytime soon. While it is correct that in the Modi-Shah era no one knows who the next BJP Chief would be, there are some names that are doing the rounds. However it would be a futile exercise to name the successor, one can take a look at the optics and the kind of messaging the BJP would like to send out when it appoints its next chief.
First, it will probably not be a woman. Though the women have emerged as a very influential vote bank, the BJP took care of the gender equation by appointing its first women chief minister when Rekha Gupta took oath as the Delhi Chief Minister. Prior to this, the BJP didn’t have a single woman chief minister.
Given the focus on the south and the fact that the Modi impact is still to comprehensively cross the Dravidian divide, the next party chief could be from the South. More so since the Congress has a Dailt from Karnataka as its party chief. Which brings us to the next optic – an OBC candidate. This again is a section that the BJP is aggressively pursuing, specially after Rahul Gandhi and the INDIA bloc harping on the caste census. Of course the Prime Minister himself is an OBC which does take away from the Congress narrative that the BJP is an upper class dominated party.
The RSS will also have a say in the final decision. Which means the candidate must have a Sangh connect. The names that are doing the rounds, all have a RSS background. So it will be one of the other factors that will play a decisive role.
The decision is expected soon and if the candidate is a Union Cabinet minister, then this could also lead to a reshuffle, though JP Nadda has been holding both posts. But whoever the candidate will be, it will still be Home Minister Amit Shah who will be doing most of the heavy lifting, from membership drives, organizational handling to election strategizing. That is just the way the BJP runs.
Priya Sahgal
