New Delhi :
Former union minister Jagat Prakash Nadda has been elected as the national working president of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The announcement was made Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh at BJP's parliamentary board meeting being held at the party's headquarters in the national capital.
"BJP won several elections under leadership of Amit Shah Ji. But since PM appointed him Home Minister, Amit Shah Ji himself said the responsibility of party president should be given to someone else. BJP Parliamentary board has selected JP Nadda as working president," Singh said.
Nadda had emerged as the likely replacement for Amit Shah as the party president after he was left out of the Union Council of Ministers, which was sworn in on May 30.
Nadda, a Brahmin leader from Himachal Pradesh, enjoys the confidence of the party's top brass, is trusted by the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh - the party's ideological parent- and enjoys a clean reputation.
He was the health minister in the first Modi government.
That Nadda (58) maintains a low profile also goes in his favour as the new party president will be expected to run the organisation in cohesion with the government and carry on with organisational agenda firmed up by Shah.
He is a member of the BJP's parliamentary board, its top decision-making body having its most important members, that gives him requisite seniority for the job as well, party sources said.
The party will also look for new presidents for its Bihar and Uttar Pradesh units as their current heads, Nityanand Rai and Mahendra Nath Pandey respectively, have been inducted in the Union Council of Ministers.
