Prime Minister Narendra Modi had an unscheduled meeting with President Droupadi Murmu on Tuesday night and around the same time the BJP top brass was huddled for hours at the residence of party chief J.P. Nadda.
The twin meetings, whose agenda remained closely guarded, took place amid the stalemate between ideological parent RSS and the BJP over the choice of the next party president and speculation of a ministerial shuffle.
Modi called on the President after his scheduled April 19 Kashmir visit to inaugurate the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla rail project was postponed without citing any official reason. Unofficially, railway officials said Modi’s visit had been postponed because of rain forecast over the weekend.
“Prime Minister Shri @narendramodi called on President Droupadi Murmu at Rashtrapati Bhavan,” the President’s official X handle posted with pictures of the meeting. The Prime Minister’s Office as well as the government’s publicity wing, the Press Information Bureau, had not put out anything about the meeting till Wednesday evening.
Sections in the BJP claimed the leadership had pressed the action button to prepare for the election of a new party president and to work out changes in the party organisation and government.
On Tuesday night, as Modi drove to the President’s House, home minister Amit Shah reached the residence of Nadda, where he was joined by defence minister Rajnath Singh, some other key ministers and party leaders. The meeting went on till late night.
“The election of a new BJP president would be followed by changes in the party organisation. Some leaders working in the party could be made ministers and some ministers could be sent to the party,” a BJP leader said.
The election of a new BJP president has turned out to be a tricky issue for the Modi-Shah duopoly with the RSS leadership learnt to be insisting on a “strong organisational leader” and not a “rubber stamp” to helm the party. Despite Modi’s visit to the RSS headquarters last month, consensus over the name of the next party president continues to elude.
The lack of consensus has led the BJP leadership to keep pushing back the election of a new party president, seen as an effort to buy time to secure the RSS’s sanction on a name of Modi’s choice.
Current party chief Nadda has been continuing on extension since his term expired in January 2023. BJP leaders said that never in the past had any party president continued on extension for such a long time. “The election could get pushed to early next month,” a party leader said.
After the meetings on Tuesday night, sections in the BJP, however, claimed that the name of the next party chief had been decided and would be announced soon.
“The meetings were an indication that the name of the new party president has been finalised,” a BJP leader close to Shah said. The leader said that a senior minister in the Modi government would be the next BJP president and claimed that even the RSS had given its go-ahead.
Modi’s meeting with the President, insiders said, was to discuss a ministerial shuffle amid expectations that apart from new BJP faces getting positions in the government, some leaders of alliance partners would also be inducted.