News Analysis India

Tag: BJP chief

  • JP Nadda: BJP chief and Union Minister JP Nadda to be Leader of the House in Rajya Sabha

    BJP President and Health and Family Welfare Minister JP Nadda will now also handle the important role of Leader of the House in Rajya Sabha. He succeeds Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal, who has now moved to the Lok Sabha as a representative of Mumbai North constituency.

    The decision to appoint Nadda, 63, as Leader of the House was expected since the Lok Sabha election results came out and Goyal quit his membership of the Upper House on June 10. Among the BJP members in the House, he qualifies on the basis of his experience and seniority.

    Nadda is into this third term in the Rajya Sabha. He entered the Upper House for the first time on April 3, 2012 from his home state Himachal Pradesh and was given a second term in 2018, again from HP. His current term began in April, 2024 when he was elected from Gujarat, putting at rest speculations that he may contest the Lok Sabha polls.Nadda is on extension as BJP chief, having completed his term last year. With his appointment as Leader of the House and responsibilities as Minister of Health and Family Welfare and Chemicals and Fertilizers, there is a likelihood of BJP choosing an acting party chief before a full-time President is elected in January 2025. The forthcoming Assembly elections in Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand later this year are a formidable challenge for the BJP as the Opposition has emerged stronger in these states after the Lok Sabha polls.

    It is not clear if Nadda will be asked to continue till January as BJP Chief or be replaced. He had himself stepped into the role of Working President of BJP in June, 2019 when Amit Shah quit the post to become Home Minister. Later he was duly elected as BJP Chief in January 2020.

    Nadda has vast political experience and has risen through the ranks in the BJP. Hailing from Bilaspur in Himachal Pradesh, the veteran leader served as a minister in the BJP government in the state in different portfolios- Health, Forest, Parliamentary Affairs and so on. He has also worked as national general secretary of the BJP.This is Nadda’s second stint in the union Health ministry. He held this portfolio from November 2014 to May 2019 in the first Narendra Modi government.As Leader of the House in Rajya Sabha, Nadda will play a crucial role in the NDA 3.0 government where the ruling coalition has a thin majority with 293 seats in the Lok Sabha. In the Upper House, BJP has 90 members in a House of 231. BJD and YSRCP, parties which used to extend issue-based support to BJP, have now turned against it in the changed political equations. The Opposition will make the going tough for the government in both Houses. The demand for sending Bills to the parliamentary committees for scrutiny and for holding discussions on current issues plaguing the country are set to increase.

    Nadda will have his hands full as Leader of the House while also juggling two important ministerial portfolios as well as the role of BJP Chief till the party finds a replacement.

  • Arvind Kejriwal: Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest: AAP faces leadership crisis ahead of Lok Sabha election

    New Delhi: The arrest of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in the alleged excise policy scam case has posed a leadership crisis question before the AAP as well as the Delhi government, with his wife Sunita Kejriwal and cabinet ministers Atishi and Saurabh Bharadwaj being talked about as his possible replacement. The challenge before the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) now is to come up with a worthy leader who could handle both the party and its government in Delhi in absence of Kejriwal.

    However, it’s indeed a big task for the AAP leadership to come up with a name of a leader that at least comes closer to Kejriwal’s stature as convener of the party since its inception in 2012 and holding Delhi Chief Minister’s post for three terms spanning nearly a decade.

    The urgency of the task becomes even more pressing as the AAP is gearing up to contest the Lok Sabha polls in Punjab, Delhi, Gujarat, Assam and Haryana in which Kejriwal was to be a key campaigner of the party. Apart from Sunita Kejriwal, a former IRS officer, the names of AAP government ministers Atishi and Bharadwaj too are taking rounds for the post of Delhi chief minister.

    Atishi, who holds the maximum number of portfolios in the Delhi government, including education, finance, PWD, revenue and services, is considered close to Arvind Kejriwal.

    She is also a frontline spokesperson of the party defending the AAP government and Kejriwal, and attacking the BJP in her regular press conferences and appearances on news channels. Likewise, Bharadwaj is also a prominent member of the Delhi Cabinet holding several important portfolios including health and urban development. He, too, is a well known face of the party, often engaged in defending the party and its leaders and counter-attacking the BJP and its government at the Centre on a range of governance-related and political issues.

    However, in December last year, the AAP launched a signature campaign ‘Mai Bhi Kejriwal’, asking people whether he should resign as Delhi chief minister or run the government from jail if arrested.

    During the campaign, the AAP supremo also met party MLAs and municipal corporation councilors in Delhi for their feedback on the issue.

    Bharadwaj recently told reporters in a press conference, “Nearly 90 per cent of people in this exercise opined that Kejriwal has the mandate of Delhi and he has been elected and hence, only he would run the government in Delhi no matter from where.”

    The AAP leadership also has to find a replacement of Kejriwal to head the party that runs governments in Delhi and Punjab besides having MLAs in Gujarat and Goa as well.

    In this area also, the options of the party are rather limited.

    Apart from Sunita Kejriwal, name of Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and Atishi too are taking rounds as leaders who could hold the responsibility of new AAP national convener.