Nadda likely to take over as BJP chief next week

BJP working president J P Nadda is set to take over as the party president, succeeding Union Home Minister Amit Shah, next week, sources said on Monday.

The schedule for the election of the new president will be released soon, they said and expressed confident that Nadda will be elected unopposed.

They said a formal announcement on the matter will be made on January 20.

Nadda was appointed as the party's working president in July last year after the incumbent Amit Shah was made a Union minister in the Modi government after the BJP won 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

In the run-up to the 2019 general elections, Nadda was in-charge of BJP's election campaign in the politically most crucial state Uttar Pradesh, where the party faced a tough challenge following the grand alliance between the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).

The party won 62 out of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh. Apart from handling crucial states for the BJP in the general elections, Nadda was a Cabinet Minister in the first tenure of the Modi government and has been a member of the parliamentary board, the BJP's top decision making body.