DC Edit | BJP Gets Its Youngest Chief

The world’s largest political party, BJP, with a membership of 14 crores that is twice as large as the second placed Chinese Communist Party, will be headed now by its youngest president in Nitin Nabin. As a five-term legislator from Bihar who has also served as a minister in the state cabinet, he has the credentials for the president’s job, and he has had the unanimous backing of his party brass and state units.

As he takes over the role played by Amit Shah and J.P. Nadda before him, what he does as BJP president is going to define his political career from now more than what he has achieved so far in driving the electoral success of the party, notably in Chhattisgarh, Delhi and recently in the Bihar Assembly elections. As Prime Minister Narendra Modi reminded him, as a millennial, Nabin is tasked not only with leading the party but also to coordinate matters within the NDA alliance.

Nabin takes over at a time when the party has recovered smartly from the dip it faced in electoral popularity as evidenced in the Lok Sabha polls of 2024 when the BJP failed to get a simple majority of its own. Since then, the poll juggernaut had picked up pace again in big electoral victories in Maharashtra, Haryana, Delhi and Bihar. And yet it faces a greater challenge as the polls this year may pose the BJP’s biggest test in years as Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Assam go to the polls in 2026.

Known for youthful energy and an ability to coordinate with all sections within his top-heavy national party, from the big brass to state leaders, Nabin will have his task cut out for him as he heads a party that has been best defined by its success at the ballot box, rising from a count of just two MPs in 1984 to a majority on its own in the 2014 polls. As a representative of the newer generations, he must also display an ability to transfer the party’s message to the youth to sustain the momentum attained.