Union Minister JP Nadda appointed Leader of House in Rajya Sabha

The BJP’s national president and Union Minister, JP Nadda, was appointed as the Leader of the House in the Rajya Sabha on Monday. Earlier this month, Nadda took over the office of the Union Health Ministry. He was also assigned to the Chemicals and Fertilizers Ministry. Nadda will be replacing Piyush Goyal as the Leader of the House. And after he took an oath as Union Minister, it was expected that JP Nadda would step down from the post of BJP’s national president, which he took over from the current Union Home Minister, Amit Shah, in 2020. However, it seems that Nadda will be holding on to the BJP chief’s position. According to the party laws, a national president is elected only after the organization polls are completed in 50 percent of all states, which is likely to go on for around six months. Nadda’s political career sprung into the limelight in 1975, when he started as an activist for the Bihar Movement, also known as the JP Movement. Following which, he joined Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), contested student Central Association elections at Patna University, and became secretary in 1977. He was actively involved in student politics between 1977 and 1979 in Ranchi. And He was first elected to the Rajya Sabha in 2012 from Himachal Pradesh and was made a member of the BJP’s parliamentary board in 2014, when Amit Shah assumed the role of the party’s chief. Earlier, he also served as an MLA in Himachal Pradesh’s Bilaspur assembly three times, from 1993 to 2007. In February this year, the BJP nominated Nadda to the Upper House from Gujarat. His term as member of the Upper House from Himachal Pradesh was to end on April 2, following which he resigned from the Rajya Sabha as a representative from Himachal Pradesh on March 4 and was elected unopposed to the House from Gujarat. This is his third term as Rajya Sabha member. As the senior most member of his party, and given his experience in parliamentary affairs, Nadda has been designated as the Loh, a position that was earlier held by the late Arun Jaitley and Thawar Chand Gehlot. AND According to a party leader, Nadda’s “affability, his temperament and patience” will be “assets” in helping the BJP navigate tricky situations in the House that require communication between the government and the Opposition Nadda started his political journey as a member of the Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the students’ wing of the party’s ideological fount, the Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). He was a three-term legislative assembly member in Himachal Pradesh starting 1993. In April 2012, he was elected to the Rajya Sabha from the state. In 2014 when the BJP came to power at the Centre, he was appointed as Union minister for health and family welfare and was renominated to the Rajya Sabha in 2018. Commenting on his designation as Loh, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh in a post on X said, “Greetings to @JPNadda ji on his being nominated as the Leader of the House in the Rajya Sabha. As Venkaiah Naidu Garu might have said – if the Leader of the House can accommodate, the Opposition can cooperate.” The Leader of the House in Rajya Sabha is the leader and parliamentary chairperson of the majority party in the Rajya Sabha and is normally either a cabinet minister or another nominated minister. The Leader of the House is responsible for organizing government meetings and business in the House. This office is not enshrined in the constitution and provided under the Rules of Rajya Sabha. Nadda is on extension as BJP chief, having completed his term last year. With his appointment as Leader of the House and responsibilities as Minister of Health and Family Welfare and Chemicals and Fertilizers, there is a likelihood of BJP choosing an acting party chief before a full-time President is elected in January 2025. The forthcoming Assembly elections in Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand later this year are a formidable challenge for the BJP as the Opposition has emerged stronger in these states after the Lok Sabha polls. It is not clear if Nadda will be asked to continue till January as BJP Chief or be replaced. He had himself stepped into the role of Working President of BJP in June, 2019 when Amit Shah quit the post to become Home Minister. Later he was duly elected as BJP Chief in January 2020. Nadda has vast political experience and has risen through the ranks in the BJP. Hailing from Bilaspur in Himachal Pradesh, the veteran leader served as a minister in the BJP government in the state in different portfolios- Health, Forest, Parliamentary Affairs and so on. He has also worked as national general secretary of the BJP. This is Nadda’s second stint in the union Health ministry. He held this portfolio from November 2014 to May 2019 in the first Narendra Modi government. As Leader of the House in Rajya Sabha, Nadda will play a crucial role in the NDA 3.0 government where the ruling coalition has a thin majority with 293 seats in the Lok Sabha. In the Upper House, BJP has 90 members in a House of 231. BJD and YSRCP, parties which used to extend issue-based support to BJP, have now turned against it in the changed political equations. The Opposition will make the going tough for the government in both Houses. The demand for sending Bills to the parliamentary committees for scrutiny and for holding discussions on current issues plaguing the country are set to increase. And Nadda will have his hands full as Leader of the House while also juggling two important ministerial portfolios as well as the role of BJP Chief till the party finds a replacement.