Tribune News Service
New Delhi, May 30
Out of the Union Council of Ministers in the BJP-led NDA’s second term, outgoing Health Minister JP Nadda may well be in the race for the post of BJP president.
Sources have not ruled out the possibility of Nadda, 59, being among the frontrunners for the top job to replace Amit Shah, who joined the Cabinet of Prime Minister Narendra Modi this evening.
Shah had taken over as BJP chief in July 2014 after then party chief Rajnath Singh joined the Modi cabinet. Thereafter, Shah took over the reins of the BJP unopposed for a full term in 2016. Before his three-year term as BJP president was to expire in January, the party’s national executive extended it up to 2019 so that
he could steer the party through the crucial 17th General Election. With the BJP constitution prescribing two terms for a sitting president, Shah has now decided to join the government, presenting a challenge for the party to find an able successor. Nadda, a former three-time Himachal MLA, is known for his proximity to Shah and was brought in as secretary of the BJP central parliamentary board in 2009 by then party president Nitin Gadkari. In the recent LS polls, Nadda supervised the party’s organisational machinery in Uttar Pradesh, where it won 62 of the 80 parliamentary constituencies, in a major marker of the outgoing Health Minister’s strategic strength.
Even as Health Minister, Nadda was credited by the PM with successfully rolling out the world’s most ambitious financial health protection plan — Ayushman Bharat Mission — wherein Rs 5 lakh cover was promised per year to 10 crore families listed as poor and vulnerable in the socio-economic caste census. Nadda’s strength lies in his low profile. He was elected to the Rajya Sabha in April 2012 for the first term and re-elected for a second term in April last year.
The next BJP chief will need to lead the party in the state elections in Haryana, Maharashtra and Jharkhand this year and in Delhi in 2020.
from The Tribune http://bit.ly/2Wi0QOz
via Today’s News Headlines
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