Era
Prime VIP
Amit Shah was elected unopposed as the president of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for a second term on Sunday.
The name of the party heavyweight, who shot to prominence by ensuring its landslide win in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, was proposed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, home minister Rajnath Singh, a few Union ministers and several chief ministers of BJP-ruled states during the nomination process held earlier in the morning. As many as 17 nominations proposing the 51-year-old leader’s name were filed during the three-hour exercise, party vice president Avinash Rai Khanna said.
However, senior leaders LK Advani and Murali Manohar Joshi stayed away from the event.
As Shah was the only leader in the fray, his re-election was widely seen as a formality. Even before he arrived at the party headquarters in New Delhi to file his nomination papers, several congratulatory posters anticipating his unopposed election as party president cropped up at several places.
Reacting to the development, Modi congratulated Shah through a tweet and stated that the party would scale newer heights under his leadership. “Congratulations to Shri Amit Shah on being elected BJP president. I am confident the party will scale newer heights under his leadership,” Modi said on Twitter.
“Amit Bhai combines grassroot-level work and rich organisational experience which will benefit the party immensely,” Modi said in another tweet.
Union minister Venkaiah Naidu described Shah as the “most capable person” in the party. “He… has organisational abilities, good strategies and, above all, a commitment
to our ideology,” he said.
This will be the first full three-year term for the Gujarat leader, seen to be fully supported by Modi, as he had taken over as the party chief only in May 2014 – after his predecessor, Rajnath Singh, joined the government.
The BJP scaled new heights under Shah’s leadership by coming to power in Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand and Jammu & Kashmir. However, the party faced crushing losses in the Delhi and Bihar assembly elections – causing some internal rumblings.
The name of the party heavyweight, who shot to prominence by ensuring its landslide win in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, was proposed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, home minister Rajnath Singh, a few Union ministers and several chief ministers of BJP-ruled states during the nomination process held earlier in the morning. As many as 17 nominations proposing the 51-year-old leader’s name were filed during the three-hour exercise, party vice president Avinash Rai Khanna said.
However, senior leaders LK Advani and Murali Manohar Joshi stayed away from the event.
As Shah was the only leader in the fray, his re-election was widely seen as a formality. Even before he arrived at the party headquarters in New Delhi to file his nomination papers, several congratulatory posters anticipating his unopposed election as party president cropped up at several places.
Reacting to the development, Modi congratulated Shah through a tweet and stated that the party would scale newer heights under his leadership. “Congratulations to Shri Amit Shah on being elected BJP president. I am confident the party will scale newer heights under his leadership,” Modi said on Twitter.
“Amit Bhai combines grassroot-level work and rich organisational experience which will benefit the party immensely,” Modi said in another tweet.
Union minister Venkaiah Naidu described Shah as the “most capable person” in the party. “He… has organisational abilities, good strategies and, above all, a commitment
to our ideology,” he said.
This will be the first full three-year term for the Gujarat leader, seen to be fully supported by Modi, as he had taken over as the party chief only in May 2014 – after his predecessor, Rajnath Singh, joined the government.
The BJP scaled new heights under Shah’s leadership by coming to power in Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand and Jammu & Kashmir. However, the party faced crushing losses in the Delhi and Bihar assembly elections – causing some internal rumblings.
