The ruling BJP on Monday appointed former health minister Jagat Prakash Nadda as its working president. The decision was taken at the meeting of the parliamentary board, the highest decision-making body, of the BJP. Newly appointed Home Minister Amit Shah will remain BJP’s national president.
The meeting was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, home minister Amit Shah and defence minister Rajnath Singh, who are all members of the BJP’s parliamentary board. Since the appointment of Amit Shah as Home Minister it was speculating of appointing new party chief.
Nadda’s appointment as the working president of the ruling party was being speculated after he was not made a member of the Union council of ministers. Even when he was part of the Modi cabinet in the government’s first term in office, he held some important posts in the party hierarchy.
In the run-up to the 2019 general elections, Nadda was in-charge of BJP’s election campaign in Uttar Pradesh, where the party faced a tough challenge following the alliance between the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party.
JP Nadda has long political career started from student politics. He was first elected to the Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly in the election of 1993 and subsequently re-elected in 1998. During his first term, he served as the Leader of his party group in the H.P. Legislative Assembly, from 1994 to 1998. He was the Minister of Health and Family Welfare and Parliamentary Affairs during his second term.
Nadda was elected for another term in the 2007 elections. After Prem Kumar Dhumal formed a government, he inducted Nadda in his cabinet, as cabinet minister responsible for Forest, Environment, Science and Technology, from 2008 to 2010. Nadda did not seek re-election to the Legislative Assembly in 2012, and instead got elected to Rajya Sabha, Indian Parliament’s upper chamber. In 2014, during a cabinet reshuffle, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made Nadda, the Minister of Health.
