JP Nadda all set to become chief of BJP national unit on January 20?

Jagat Prakash Nadda, working president of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is likely to be elevated as the party chief, replacing Amit Shah, this ekadashi (January 20), say sources

New Delhi: BJP working president JP 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 confidently that Nadda will be elected unopposed.

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

The process of election of the national BJP president is quite elaborate and has been described in detail in the party constitution. The national president shall be elected by an electoral college, comprising members of the national council and the state councils, they added.

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.