In a statement, the BJP’s national returning officer for the election, K Laxman, said, “In all, 37 sets of nomination papers were received in favour of Shri Nitin Nabin for the post of national president”, adding that after the period of withdrawal “only one name, that of Shri Nitin Nabin has been proposed for the post of national president of the BJP”.
The process for the BJP national president’s election recently got underway after the appointment of 30 state presidents out of the party’s 36 organisational states, which was well above its requirement of at least half the state presidents being elected.
Nabin, 45, is thus set to become the party’s youngest chief. He is bracing to deal with a slew of formidable challenges that could reshape national politics during his three-year tenure, starting with the upcoming crucial round of the Assembly elections in states like West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Assam.
Surprise pick
The BJP high command’s move to appoint Nabin, the five-time Bihar MLA and ex-minister, as the party’s national working president last month surprised even the party leaders and workers in Bihar, as he was not considered a part of even the state’s top party leaders, that included Ravi Shankar Prasad, Radha Mohan Singh and Rajiv Pratap Rudy (all MPs), and younger leaders such as Deputy CMs Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha.
This was reflected when a Bihar BJP spokesperson first broke the news about Nabin’s elevation to a senior state party leader. The senior leader reprimanded the spokesperson. But then, after a few moments, the leader’s body language suddenly changed as he got the message. From being just “Nitin” to many, he has now become “Adhyaksh ji” to everyone, including his seniors.
With Nabin belonging to the upper caste Kayastha group, which makes up less than 1% of Bihar’s
population, no one would have given him a chance for the top party post, more so because of the state’s dominant OBC-centric politics. However, Nabin’s elevation is also being seen in Bihar BJP circles as part of the party leadership’s long-term plan to build up its key face in the state.
Nabin’s rise
Nabin’s elevation signals the BJP’s generational shift, as he becomes the first party leader from Bihar, as also the first Kayastha leader, to occupy the top organisational post.
Starting his political innings with the RSS’ student wing ABVP, Nabin displayed his organisational capability during his stint as the national general secretary of the BJP’s youth wing BJYM.
Son of former BJP legislator late Nabin Kishore Sinha, Nabin is believed to have sound organisational and administrative skills.
Nabin is understood to have impressed the BJP leadership as the party co-incharge of the November 2023 Chhattisgarh Assembly elections, when it pulled off a surprise win by beating the incumbent Bhupesh Baghel-led Congress.
The next year, he was appointed the BJP in-charge of the Lok Sabha elections in Chhattisgarh, which the party swept there. In July 2024, he was named the party in-charge of the state. A Chhattisgarh BJP leader said, “Nabin played a leading role in strategising and campaigning for these polls, which helped the party to win them smoothly.”
Barely two weeks before the 2025 Bihar Assembly elections, on October 25, the first day of the four-day Chhath festival, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, in the course of his poll campaign, visited Nabin’s house in Patna. Any possible deeper import of Shah’s visit to a relatively lesser-known BJP minister was then not known to anyone in the state party circles.
Subsequently, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Patna on his way to attend an election rally, several BJP leaders, including Nabin, lined up at the airport to receive him. After acknowledging the greetings of some party leaders at the front of the queue, the PM stopped where Nabin stood and had a word with him. Not much was read into it even then. Nabin also played a major role in organising Modi’s rally in Madhubani in the Mithilanchal region.
After the NDA swept the elections, Nabin – who won his Bankipur seat for fourth consecutive term by about 52,000 votes – was assigned the charge of overseeing the arrangements for Nitish Kumar’s swearing-in as the CM for a record 10th time at Gandhi Maidan in Patna. A section of the BJP leaders then felt that in the new NDA ministry, he may replace party colleague Vijay Sinha, also from the upper caste like him, as the second deputy CM. However, the BJP subsequently sprang a surprise by picking him as the successor of national party chief J P Nadda.
Challenges for Nabin
Nabin is a low-key, “non-controversial” leader without any baggage, who is accessible to common party workers. He is known to enjoy the confidence of both Modi and Shah.
Nabin is also said to have the RSS’s blessings, who was keen on the BJP promoting a young leader for its top position, party sources said. One of the key tasks Nabin has been mandated with is to improve the relations and coordination between the BJP and its ideological fountainhead RSS, sources said.
Nabin’s immediate task would be to lead the BJP into the upcoming elections, following which he will be expected to prepare the party for the 2029 Lok Sabha elections.
His key challenges on the road to 2029 would include the issue of implementation of women reservation in the Lok Sabha and state Assemblies, navigating the fraught delimitation exercise that would follow the 2027 Census and caste count, and pushing for the Modi government’s One Nation One Election (ONOE) initiative.
Amid a shifting political landscape, Nabin would have to display “deft leadership and consensus-building” while also preparing the next generation of the BJP leaders to tackle various daunting tasks, said party leaders.
