Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Nitin Nabin took almost eight months to unveil his team of national office-bearers, consisting of old and new faces, while betraying a sign that the saffron outfit is in the midst of a crisis.
After his appointment as BJP president in January this year—and riding a buzz after Prime Minister Narendra Modi called him his “boss”—Nabin invites scrutiny on his decision-making speed, as well as the level of autonomy that he commands in the party.
Against the hype of a possible “Kamraj Plan” in the BJP, stoked by commentaries by saffron sympathisers, only Union Minister for Commerce Piyush Goyal figured in the list with an accompanying buzz in the party that he will continue to hold his position in the Modi Cabinet as his task in the organisation merely involves “bookkeeping” as the treasurer.
Two past discards —Ram Madhav and Smriti Irani—join Nabin’s team as political heavyweights. Madhav was a powerful BJP General Secretary in the initial few years of the Modi government before he lost favour and was sent back to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). From hogging limelight for the BJP’s key strategists for Jammu and Kashmir and Northeast, Madhav spent latter years in political oblivion.