As the Bharatiya Janata Party gets a new ‘next-generation’ president in Nitin Nabin, it also prepares for the coming political challenges of the future. The present leadership will wish to conform to the principle that enforced retirement on those that preceded it. It has to not just keep its enormous cadre focused on the party’s objectives but also send the message that those who perform well will rise in the party and government ranks. Although Nabin is a second-generation politician, the effort will be to minimise as much as possible the dynastic politics that plagues all political parties. For this, the nationalistic and civilisational ideology of the BJP and its previous avatar, the Jan Sangh, will have to be reinforced and reinvented for the coming times.
The challenges are many – first and foremost finding a leader who can fit into Narendra Modi’s boots. There was the charismatic Atal Bihari Vajpayee, earlier, but he was too much part of the Nehruvian culture and could not maintain focus on the imperatives of retaining power in a highly fragmented and competitive environment. Modi has the support of almost all sections of Indian society because he is perceived to be delivering on the economic and strategic fronts. Can the party match his performance in the future? Finding out will be part of Nabin’s job.
Another one of Modi’s achievements has been the ability to select team members that not only are good at their job but can do so quite independently – not just Amit Shah, but also the likes of S Jaishankar and Nirmala Sitharaman. Similarly, there are is the ability to take the best out of top level bureaucrats in not just identifying areas to focus on but also craft development and social welfare schemes to deal with them. This skill can only come from total dedication to the nation’s welfare.
So, while Modi will still be around for some time, a wise approach requires creating conditions that can throw up his successor. Developing a culture that is tuned into the present day aspirations of the youth would be part of this strategy. Does Nabin qualify in this regard, or he just a symbolic choice? The BJP and the RSS have rarely failed, particularly in recent times, in identifying leadership quality in their cadres. Similar homework will have gone into to the new party president’s selection. His presence will not likely have an impact in the coming assembly elections, but the next couple of years will show how the strategy has worked.
