Within hours of clearing the Uttar Pradesh knot, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) unveiled its new working president as Nitin Nabin—a move that has left many in Delhi stunned. Nabin is an unfamiliar name in these circles and he didn’t fit the popular description, which makes it clear that the saffron outfit has pressed a reboot button. At 45, Nabin is not just young but he’s also not exposed to Delhi’s “foul political air.”
Why Nitin Nabin?
Born in 1980, the same year as the BJP, Nabin was thrown into the tumult of politics at a young age when his father passed away. Naveen Prasad Sinha, his father, considered himself in the league of Sushil Kumar Modi, for he had won from Patna West Assembly seat in 1995 during the peak of Lalu Prasad Yadav. Five years later, he again won. Nabin inherited the political legacy from his father, to win first in a sympathy wave but afterwards establishing himself as an accessible leader who nursed his constituency well.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar saw in him a trusted lieutenant who can carry out his principal political pivot to “connect all corners of the state with Patna with a six-hour road journey.” Nabin proved to be a capable apprentice for Kumar.
As Road Minister in the Nitish Kumar cabinet, Nabin gained an image of a performer unblemished with scars of corruption. This found an indirect endorsement from Prashant Kishor, who, when he accused BJP’s Bihar ministers for corruption, didn’t target Nabin.
With roads as the key pivot of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Bihar development plank”, Nabin had already made his mark with the only man who matters in the BJP currently.
Nabin’s helming of the youth wing of the BJP in Bihar had also earned him a reputation for an effective team man.
The RSS Revisits “Reboot BJP” Plan
Years ago, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) had made a bold move to “free the BJP from the caucus of D3 (Delhi’s three big BJP leaders.” The RSS had prevailed over the BJP top brass to make Nitin Gadkari as party’s president.
The RSS believed that the BJP needed leadership which was not exposed to the “foul political air of Delhi.” It reasoned that an outsider could crack Delhi's grip on the BJP and prepare the party for the future.
In his short stint, Gadkari carried out a slew of experiments, which have expanded in their scope now. The digital push, diaspora connect, think tank approach, and a few more have Gadkari's imprints in the BJP.
But the RSS gathered an impression that its mission was cut short. Gadkari faced allegations of financial wrongdoings in his private business when he was the party president. The RSS read the script that the experiment was facing sabotage. Gadkari left the office in 2013. A familiar face in Delhi took the office, and he was Rajnath Singh—a prodigy of LK Advani who shifted loyalty with the change of winds in the BJP at ease.
The RSS realised that its bid to reboot the BJP not only failed but efforts were mounted—as became widely known during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections—to cut its political influence.
The 2024 verdict gave a reality check to the BJP, and the ensuing power tussle seemingly found a resolution in the Prime Minister and the RSS sarsanghchalak (general secretary) Mohan Bhagwat settling upon a common purpose—to win elections for ideological and political expansion and to reboot the BJP.
Nabin is now the new Gadkari of the RSS, with no imprints of Delhi on him and no influence of Delhi’s power politics.
While some may conveniently label him as an Amit Shah man by citing that Nabin was sent to Chhattisgarh as an election in-charge, the greater spotlight may be on the “kitchen cabinet” of the Union Home Minister who for years were pining for the top post of the BJP but failed the test of the RSS. In BJP’s election juggernauts, there are several Nabins who are sent to states to oversee elections, and they all may very conveniently be given the label of Amit Shah man. But beyond the convenience of playing to the political gallery lies the hard fact that Modi and Bhagwat are rebooting the BJP, which in coming years may send familiar Delhi faces into oblivion.
Modi Knows Nabin—Does Bhagwat?
The Prime Minister had already scored a half a century of visits to Bihar before he launched electioneering in the state much ahead of poll dates’ unveiling. Afterwards, he was in Bihar on a weekly basis, and then almost daily. Modi, thus, knows Bihar, arguably second only to Gujarat.
Bhagwat knows Bihar, possibly even better than Modi. Bhagwat has spent several years in Bihar when he was a “prant pracharak (regional head of the RSS).” Even today, during his visits to Bihar, Bhagwat addresses RSS workers—children when he was a prant pracharak, now grown up—with their nicknames from boyhood.
Bhagwat’s training in Indian politics, one may argue, was carried out in Bihar’s political laboratory. This should make it clear that Bhagwat would be knowing Nabin from his days of infancy. It’s worthwhile to mention that Bhagwat’s Bihar mandate had Patna at its centre.
The RSS works with a plan for the next 20 years. The Prime Minister’s political impulse is also to look long into the future. Nabin’s principal task will be to carry out a surgery in the BJP, and throw away the fat, which may be tiring the party.
By getting a first working president from the eastern parts of the country, Narendra Modi and the RSS are making it clear that the BJP’s eastward expansion is now in focus. The mammoth Bihar win has emboldened the BJP to assert an ideological superiority in the eastern parts, on the lines of the western regions, in states such as Bihar, West Bengal, Odisha, and the Northeast. Modi and Bhagwat, thus, have scripted BJP’s reboot plan with eyes on the future.
(The author is a senior Delhi-based journalist with over two decades spent in reporting on Indian politics for several leading English dailies. This is an opinion piece, and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)