New Delhi: Ongoing organisational elections in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a precursor to election of its national president, offer a peek into the five essential criteria that the party leadership appears to look for in potential leaders.
The process of electing state presidents was initiated by the BJP last December.
On Tuesday, nominations were filed in Maharashtra, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, following which Ravindra Chavan, N. Ramchander Rao, P.V.N. Madhav, Mahendra Bhatt and Rajeev Bindal were announced as presidents of these state units, respectively. They were the only leaders to file nomination.
New presidents have so far been elected for BJP units in 26 states and UTs, and a closer look at their backgrounds suggests that a person aspiring to lead party workers should meet the five key criterions.
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The RSS factor
The first criterion, is association with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the BJP’s ideological parent. As many as 14 of the 26 selected chiefs are either the product of RSS shakhas or have been associated with the outfit since their student days through the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), students’ wing of the RSS.
Take, for instance, Rao, elected in Telangana. A senior advocate and former MLC, he was associated with the ABVP. Similarly, the party opted for Madhav in Andhra Pradesh, to replace MP Daggubati Purandeswari, daughter of former chief minister and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) founder N.T. Rama Rao.
The 52-year-old Madhav is known to have strong ties with the RSS and his father, P.V. Chalapati Rao, played a crucial role in strengthening the BJP in the north-coastal region of the state. The senior Rao also served as first state BJP president of undivided Andhra Pradesh.
Bhatt, elected in Uttarakhand, Bindal, in Himachal Pradesh, Madan Rathore, re-elected in Rajasthan, and Anil Tiwari, elected in Andaman & Nicobar, all are known to have links with the RSS.
A senior BJP leader told ThePrint that many state presidents of the BJP have earlier been connected with the RSS, but this time, special care was taken about this to ensure greater coordination with the outfit.
Among the 12 who do not have roots in the RSS are Nainar Nagendran, picked for Tamil Nadu, Rajeev Chandrasekhar for Kerala, and V.P. Ramalingam, for Puducherry.
Nagendran quit the AIADMK in 2017 to join the BJP. Chandrasekhar, an entrepreneur-turned-politician, first entered the Rajya Sabha as an Independent in 2006. Ramalingam quit the Congress to join the BJP in 2021.
Three are from the North-eastern states—Meghalaya, Nagaland and Mizoram.
BJP functionaries told ThePrint that while association with the RSS is a “big advantage” for ambitious leaders, the party has to opt for leaders from non-RSS-BJP background in states where it has traditionally been weak.
Organisational experience
The second criterion is organisational experience. Most of the state presidents elected or re-elected by the BJP have a strong organisational background. For example, Dilip Jaiswal has been re-elected as president of the Bihar unit. A third-time member of the Bihar Legislative Council, he is also a former state minister.
Many within the BJP see Jaiswal as an experienced hand who knows how the party functions and also served as its treasurer for over two decades. Not only this, the party had also made him in-charge of the Sikkim unit.
In Rajasthan, the party decided to re-elect Rathore, 70, a Rajya Sabha member from the state. He served as an MLA twice during the tenure of Vasundhara Raje as chief minister and also held the position of deputy chief whip in the assembly (2015-18).
Similarly, the party reposed faith again in 70-year-old Bindal for heading Himachal Pradesh. Bindal has worked with the RSS-affiliated Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram in Jharkhand and served as an MLA five times, from 2002 to 2022. He won three assembly elections from Solan and two from Nahan. Like Jaiswal, he too served as treasurer.
“It is important to choose leaders who have organisational knowledge and are well-versed with the party setup. The experience of these leaders will come handy in running the state and ensuring that they can increase the party’s footprint,” said a BJP leader.
In Madhya Pradesh too, the party opted for an organisational man, Hemant Khandelwal, a third-generation politician. Khandelwal was treasurer of the Madhya Pradesh BJP before being elevated as state unit chief. He entered electoral politics in 2008 after winning a by-election necessitated by the demise of his father Vijay Khandelwal, who was an MP from Betul. He then went on to serve as district president of Betul district from 2010 to 2013.
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Caste arithmetic
Another criterion the BJP leadership seems to factor in while picking state chiefs is caste. In some cases, the party opts for a candidate from a dominant caste to win over that community and in others, persons from non-dominant castes are picked “to take everybody along”. For instance, in poll-bound Bihar, the party went with Jaiswal who comes from the Khagaria district and belongs to the Vaishya community.
“The idea is to get the support of the community ahead of the assembly elections. The community comes under the Extremely Backward Class (EBC) category and constitutes a huge section of population,” a second BJP leader said, adding that Jaiswal is also considered close to Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
In Uttarakhand too, by opting for Bhatt, the party is seen to have considered the “right caste mix,” keeping in mind that CM Pushkar Singh Dhami belongs to the Thakur community and Bhatt is a Brahmin. In Uttarakhand, Brahmins and Thakurs are estimated to make up around 60 percent of the population.
In Tamil Nadu, the party replaced K. Annamalai, who comes from the OBC Gounder community dominant in the western region. BJP ally AIADMK’s general secretary E. Palaniswami also comes from the same caste and region, and thus the BJP has appointed Nagendran, who comes from the Mukkulathor community, a group of the Kallar, Maravar, and Agamudayar castes dominant in the southern region of Tamil Nadu.
The BJP considers this region “fertile ground” for expansion.
In Kerala, where the BJP has been trying to make inroads for quite some time, Chandrasekhar’s appointment as chief is seen as aimed at consolidating votes from the Nairs, the community to which he belongs.
The state is set to witness the local body polls this year and assembly elections in 2026.
In Rajasthan, seasoned Rathore, from the Teli-Ghanchi caste, has been chosen apparently keeping caste sentiments in mind as CM Bhajan Lal Sharma is a Brahmin and the previous state unit president C.P. Joshi was also a Brahmin.
“So far, none of the leaders belonging to this caste from Rajasthan has been made a minister nor is someone from this caste at the Centre. So, it was felt that this would help in the social messaging of the party,” a BJP functionary told ThePrint.
Neutrality
A fourth factor the BJP high command seems to put a premium on in choosing state unit chiefs is “neutrality” in faction-ridden state units. In many states, especially Telangana, Kerala, Rajasthan, and Bihar, the party has struggled with factionalism.
Workers have complained about not being heard, party activities not being carried out properly or workers being sidelined. In Telangana, for instance, there were many claimants for the state chief’s post—former state president Bandi Sanjay, Eatala Rajender, who joined the BJP in 2021, and Nizamabad MP Dharmapuri Arvind, among others.
The BJP high command opted for Rao, from the Brahmin community that is estimated to make up barely 3 percent of the state’s population.
“In opting for Rao, the party has ensured that none of the heavyweights will have much scope to protest or contest the decision. Had the party opted for any of these heavyweights, it could have created an ugly situation. So, while Rao may lack mass appeal, he will act as glue to bind the party,” a third BJP leader said.
Annamalai too seems to have been replaced in Tamil Nadu over his inability to take everyone along.
“Annamalai was replaced keeping the tie-up with AIADMK in mind, but at the same time, Nagendran is an experienced hand and knows how to take everyone along, something which had become an issue during Annamalai’s tenure,” said another functionary.
In Kerala, factionalism had come to the fore during by-elections in November 2024. Then, post the BJP candidate’s loss in Palakkad, the party’s national council member N. Sivarajan and Palakkad municipal chairperson Prameela Sasidharan had publicly questioned candidate C. Krishnakumar, considered close to then state president K. Surendran.
Not only this, a few days before the elections, BJP leader Sandeep Varier had defected to the Congress due to his “rift with Surendran”. Surendran has now been replaced with Chandrasekhar.
Distant from controversy
The new state unit chiefs chosen by the BJP are also meant to be a signal to rabble-rousers. For, almost all the new appointees are non-controversial leaders who prefer to maintain a low profile and are known as “moderate” voices.
After controversial MLA T. Raja Singh resigned from the party this week, alleging that he was not allowed to contest for the post of Telangana BJP chief, the party issued a statement saying it values “commitment over charisma and substance over spectacle”.
Singh, according to a 2022 statement by Hyderabad Police, faces more than 100 criminal cases and was “involved in communal offences in different police stations of Hyderabad city police commissionerate”.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)