JP Nadda appointed BJP working president; Amit Shah remains party chief

The BJP parliamentary board on Monday evening appointed former Union minister JP Nadda as the party’s national working president. Amit Shah, now Home Minister in the Narendra Modi government, will stay on as BJP president and is likely to lead the party through the Assembly elections in Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand later this year.

Why the change

Announcing the decision, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said the BJP had won several elections under Shah’s leadership, and that after Modi made him Home Minister, Shah himself had asked that the party job go to someone else. “The BJP parliamentary board has selected JP Nadda as working president,” Singh said. He added that Nadda would hold the post until the party’s membership drive and organisational elections were completed.

A new president had been widely expected once Shah joined the cabinet. In 2014, Rajnath Singh stepped down as party chief after becoming Home Minister, and Shah took over to finish his term. The BJP’s organisational polls begin later this year and end with the choice of a national president in January 2020. The amended party constitution allows two full terms of three years each.

Who is Nadda

Nadda, 58, is a Brahmin leader from Himachal Pradesh who enjoys the trust of the party leadership and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, and has a clean image. He was Health Minister in Modi’s first government and sits on the parliamentary board, the party’s highest decision-making body. Regarded as a strategist, he was in charge of Uttar Pradesh in the recent election, where the BJP won 62 of 80 seats.

Educated at St. Xavier’s School and Patna College in Patna and at Himachal Pradesh University in Shimla, he was elected MLA three times in Himachal and entered the Rajya Sabha when he became a Union minister in 2014. His low profile is seen as an advantage in a role that requires working smoothly with the government.

In a series of tweets, Nadda thanked Modi and Shah and said he would work to strengthen the party, adding that “serving the party is like worship for me”.

What happened next

Nadda succeeded Shah as BJP president in January 2020. In the 2019 Assembly elections, the BJP won 105 seats in Maharashtra, where Uddhav Thackeray of the Shiv Sena later became Chief Minister with NCP and Congress support; 40 in Haryana, where Manohar Lal Khattar was Chief Minister after the vote; and 25 in Jharkhand, where the JMM’s Hemant Soren took over as Chief Minister.

See also: Bharatiya Janata Party and political leaders.

Originally published on 17 June 2019. Rewritten on 9 October 2026.

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