Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Jan 20: The Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday congratulated Nitin Nabin on his election as the BJP national president and declared that the young leader would be his “boss” in matters related to the party.
Addressing a gathering at the party headquarters in New Delhi, Mr Modi described 45-year-old Nabin, who was elected the 12th national president of BJP, as a “millennial” who belongs to a generation that has witnessed a great deal of change in India. Nabin was declared the BJP national president at the party headquarters on Tuesday at the conclusion of the Sanghatan Parv, which saw elections to various party posts from the booth level to the national level.
“When it comes to party matters, Mananiya (honourable) Nitin Nabin ji… I am a worker, and you are my boss,” PM Modi said. “Now, honourable Nitin Nabin ji is the president of all of us, and his responsibility is not just to manage the BJP but also to ensure coordination among all NDA allies,” the prime minister said.
PM Modi said Nabin belongs to an era in which people heard the news on the radio in childhood and are now well-versed in using artificial intelligence. “Nitin ji has both youthful energy and a great deal of experience,” the prime minister said.
The prime minister said under the leadership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Lal Krishna Advani, and Murali Manohar Joshi, the BJP saw a journey from zero to the summit. “In this century, leaders like M Venkaiah Naidu and Nitin Gadkari, along with many of our senior colleagues, expanded the organisation. Under the leadership of Rajnath ji, for the first time, the BJP achieved a full majority on its own,” PM Modi said.
“Then, under the leadership of Amit Shah, the BJP formed governments in many states and came to power at the Centre for a second consecutive term. Under the leadership of JP Nadda, the BJP grew stronger from the panchayat to Parliament,” PM Modi said.
At 45, Mr Nabin is the youngest-ever BJP president (working or otherwise). His elevation signals a generational shift in the ruling party. He is also the first leader from Bihar to hold the post, an important marker after the BJP-Janata Dal (United) alliance won a big mandate in the recently concluded Assembly elections.
His community background — a Kayastha, an upper caste but not numerically significant in electoral terms — has also been seen significant, in that it neither alienates marginalised communities nor unsettles dominant social groups.
During the year and a half it took to settle on Mr Nabin, the RSS was said to favour a more senior, seasoned successor to the current BJP president, J.P. Nadda. Mr Nabin, though now associated with the RSS, didn’t have the customary stints in the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the RSS’s student wing, or in other frontal organisations, unlike Mr Nadda and most other senior leaders of the party.
Born in 1980, the year the BJP was founded, Nitin Nabin grew up in Bihar where his father Nabin Kishore Prasad Sinha was a BJP MLA. Widely respected within the BJP in Bihar, the late Sinha represented Patna (West) in the Bihar Assembly, but is not believed to have harboured any political ambitions for his son.
After completing his matriculation at St. Michael’s in Patna, Mr Nabin was, as was common in middle class families in Bihar in the 1990s, sent to Delhi for further schooling at Col Satsangi’s Kiran Memorial Public School (CSKM), a residential and day-boarding institution where he completed his Class XII studies.
He then went on to study engineering at the Birla Institute of Technology (BIT) in Mesra, Jharkhand, with no plans to enter politics. In a twist of fate, one that now seems a recurring feature in Mr Nabin’s life, he suffered a bereavement while in the fourth and final year of his engineering course, with the death of his father. In 2006, having abandoned his studies during that period of family crisis, he contested and won the Patna (West) byelection, held after his father’s passing. The seat was first offered to Sinha’s widow, Meera Sinha, but she urged Mr Nabin to take the plunge.
That seat, after delimitation, is now known as Bankipore, from where Mr Nabin has remained undefeated to this day. With his entry into the Assembly, he also began his quiet climb through the party’s organisational ranks, securing a place in the BJP’s National Executive, and taking on roles in its youth wing, the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), eventually serving as president of its Bihar unit until 2019.
“He was always conscientious, and affable, and very low profile, hardly ever pushing himself forward. When he was nominated for a fellowship to the United States while in the BJYM, he was shocked that he had been noticed enough,” said a former colleague of Mr Nabin from the BJYM.
The first time this largely below-the-radar political ascent drew wider attention was in 2010, when Mr Nabin, along with another BJP leader, Sanjeev Chaurasia, put up posters across Patna thanking the then-Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, for the ₹5 crore relief sent by the State government after the 2008 Bihar floods. The move irked the BJP’s alliance partner and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who made a point of returning the amount and expressing his displeasure by cancelling a dinner he was to host for BJP leaders during the saffron party’s National Executive meeting in Patna.
While the BJP and the Janata Dal (U) tangoed in a will-they-won’t-they alliance for much of the next decade and a half, Mr Nabin had chosen his side and stuck to it. Despite this (or perhaps because of it), he was inducted in 2021 as Minister for Roads in the Nitish Kumar-led NDA government in the State, and a month ago, he took oath as Minister for Urban Development, Law and Justice.
Within the party, his low-key style marked him out early for organisational responsibilities. In 2019, he was given charge of Sikkim, where he played a part in unseating five-time Chief Minister Pawan Chamling, the longest-serving Chief Minister in India, and securing an NDA victory in the State.
It was, however, another serendipitous assignment that brought him to the attention of Union Home Minister Amit Shah: his appointment as the BJP’s election co-in-charge in Chhattisgarh in 2023. Mr Nabin’s ability to work with — and extract results from — the party’s second rung of leadership in the State, as it took on then-Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, who had appeared invincible, impressed Mr Shah. Mr Nabin’s ascent to the top job apparently was a mix of fate and ability.
The Opposition took a jibe at the announcement of Nabin as the BJP president and questioned the election process for the post. Congress’ media and publicity department head, Pawan Khera, targeted the Chief Election Commissioner, while also claiming that the BJP was “playing Bigg Boss”.
“Is Bigg Boss game being played here. What is this? The biggest boss of Hindu dharma is shedding tears and they are busy playing Bigg Boss,” Mr Khera said. He further said, “Gyanesh Kumar wants to resign in protest; he has no role, he can’t even influence, he can’t even manipulate anything.”
Khera questioned where the elections were held, while saying that the BJP announced the president first and then said there would be an election. “Where is the election? Why do you even call it an election. You announce the president first and then say there will be an election, and then there is no election,” Khera said at a press conference.
The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MP Manoj Jha said it was the BJP’s “internal matter”, but claimed that Nabin’s election had been “pre-decided.” “It is the party’s internal matter, but there was nothing like an electoral process in all of this. Whatever happened was pre-decided…” Jha said, while congratulating Nabin.
Congress MP Manickam Tagore also questioned the election, while claiming that PM Modi and union home minister Amit Shah take decisions in the BJP. “There is no democracy in BJP, only HM Amit Shah and PM Modi take the decisions and they have proved it again… What is the work of the returning officer when there is no election?” Tagore asked, while saying that the Congress had held elections for the party president’s post wherein Shashi Tharoor and Mallikarjun Kharge were candidates. “… BJP is an authoritative party and moving towards dictatorship… Even RSS is stunned to see this…” the Congress MP said.
