New Delhi: The haste with which the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has gone about electing its party presidents of various state units over the last two weeks indicates that it has finally woken up to realise that it can no longer avoid electing a new party chief, and that it urgently needs to replace the outgoing president J.P. Nadda.
Nadda’s six-year tenure had ended in January last year, but the party has since then struggled to elect its new president. It has extended Nadda’s term multiple times, and in spite of repeated assurances made to its rank and file, it could not elect a minimum number of state chiefs that is required by its party’s constitution to constitute a electoral college that can elect a national president.
The saffron party extended Nadda’s tenure first by citing the political urgency of 2024 Lok Sabha polls but since then, it has been contending with simmering infighting within various state units that has prevented the completion of organisational polls.
BJP’s constitution dictates that the election of new party president must be preceded by an organisational overhaul at the state level, from mandals and blocks to districts. And, that the party must complete organisational polls in at least 50% of its 36 state units to meet the conditions of the electoral college that can then elect a party president.
The crisis in the party had become so apparent that until a few weeks ago, the top leadership had finished conducting organisational polls and electing state chiefs , most of which are small units. Such has been the intensity of factional fights within the party that its strongholds like Uttar Pradesh or Gujarat, or even West Bengal, still do not have its new state chiefs, while its Madhya Pradesh unit could elect its chief only on July 2, 2025.
The multiple delays had become a cause of embarrassment for the party. In such circumstances, while the party has been unable to rein in infighting in important states, the top leadership appears to have decided to constitute an electoral college as soon as possible so that a new party chief could replace Nadda.
The new state chiefs
Over the last two weeks, the BJP elected nine state presidents – and managed to fulfil the conditions of an electoral college. The party had to eventually rely upon its ideological fountainhead, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), to overcome the crisis.
Most of these new appointments aren’t among the prominent leaders of the state units, but are known for their affiliation to the RSS who like to work silently and consistently. The new appointments have temporarily shut up those warring factions as none would risk taking on the all-dominant RSS, but the move is at best a band-aid treatment for a much deeper wound.
Most of the new appointments were elected unopposed, indicating the RSS’s stamp on the nominees. Former state minister Ravindra Chavan was unanimously elected the Maharashtra unit chief, while Rajya Sabha member Mahendra Bhatt was re-elected as the president of Uttarakhand BJP. Similarly, five-term MLA Rajiv Bindal was re-elected unopposed in Himachal Pradesh.
Some interesting appointments were made in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh where former MLC N. Ramchander Rao replaced Union minister G. Kishan Reddy and P.V.N. Madhav succeeded D. Purandeswari, respectively. Both leaders weren’t overly active on the political stage in recent times, and thus defy the usual caste calculations. While Rao is a Brahmin, Madhav is an OBC leader but both have been old-timers in the RSS, beginning their activism from the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad.
With these appointments, the party also found a way out from the strong factional lobbying from Reddy and OBC leaders.
Similarly, defying such calculations was the unopposed election of Betul MLA and low-profile Hemant Khandelwal, who, too, belongs to the RSS stable and came with the support of chief minister Mohan Yadav.
The party fulfilled the conditions of the electoral college with appointments of state chiefs in three other small units. V.P. Ramalingam was elected unopposed in Puducherry, K. Beichhua became the Mizoram chief, while Anil Tiwari was chosen the state chief of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. All the three have strong associations in the RSS.
Among the new appointees, the BJP managed to supersede the faction-ridden Telangana, Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh units, which made organisational polls a contested affair. Both OBC and Reddy leaders were shown the door in Telangana.
The from the party shows the extent of dissatisfaction in the Telangana unit. In Himachal Pradesh, Jairam Thakur’s faction was sidelined in favour of Bindal, while the outgoing state chief V.D. Sharma, who was often seen making controversial statements, seems to have fallen out of favour in Madhya Pradesh.
However, the troubles in Uttar Pradesh where various caste factions have staked claim to the all-important position of state chief continue to worry the party. Similarly, in Haryana, the BJP hasn’t been able to tackle the infighting between incumbent chief Mohan Lal Badoli and senior minister Anil Vij.
In the poll-bound Bihar, the nomination of Dilip Kumar Jaiswal was notified with much delay only recently but factions continue to trouble the party in anticipation of a win in the upcoming elections. In Karnataka, opposition against the state chief B.Y. Bijayendra seems to be escalating persistently.
RSS back in play
The BJP now has 21 new state chiefs, three more than the 50% mark it needed for the electoral college. The election of a new president will also buy the party sometime to contain the factions in remaining states. However, the crucial factor that has emerged over the last few months is the way the RSS has crawled back into action. It has again become an important constituent in making decisions for the BJP.
Multiple observers had said that the rise of Modi-Shah duo in the BJP had cornered the RSS – something that was also seen during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections when the RSS didn’t participate in canvassing like it used to earlier. Its reluctance was considered a show of dissent.
But soon after the BJP was reduced to 240 seats from 303 in the Lok Sabha, the RSS was seen intervening in political debates and influencing BJP’s and Modi government’s decisions actively. Prime Minister Narendra Modi made his first official visit to RSS headquarters in Nagpur in March 2025. A large part of the delay in conducting organisational polls was also attributed to the lack of consensus on the new party president.
Currently, three BJP leaders – Union environment minister and Amit Shah’s close aide Bhupendra Yadav, former Haryana chief minister and now the Union minister of power and urban affairs, M.L. Khattar; and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister and now the Union agriculture and rural development minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan – are top contenders to become the new party chief. All the three belong to the RSS stable, having begun their political careers from grassroot Hindutva activism.
All signs hint towards one of them becoming the new party chief. But clearly the decision will be incumbent on the big boss’s stamp of approval, and it will most likely be given at the upcoming three-day prant pracharak meeting of the RSS from July 4 to 6 in New Delhi, presided over by the Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat and Sarkaryawah (general secretary) Dattatreya Hosabale.