NEW DELHI: Amit Shah, a close aide of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was declared the new president of the Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday.
Shah was unanimously selected as the president of the party said senior leader Rajnath Singh at a press meet in New Delhi.
Congratulating Shah on the huge success of the party in Uttar Pradesh in the recent Lok Sabha polls, Rajnath praised Shah for his organisational and managerial skills.
Shah, a confidant of Modi, became the frontrunner for the post after the party won an unprecedented 71 seats, while two were won by its allies, out of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh. Shah was in charge of party affairs in UP.
Sources said Shah will get to choose his new team which will remain in place till 2015, after which he may have to seek re-endorsement according to the party constitution. As Rajnath Singh’s tenure is till 2015, Shah will complete this tenure first.
Shah will now have a say in deciding state party chiefs and chief ministerial candidates of the upcoming Assembly elections in Haryana, Maharashtra, this year, while in Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand and Bihar next year.
Shah was last week allotted Z plus security.
In UP, Shah prepares for Modi ahead of 2014 battle
The battle for the crown in Delhi will be fought in the dusty plains of Uttar Pradesh. By giving the reigns of UP’s electoral campaign to Amit Shah, Narendra Modi and the BJP leadership had made its game plan clear—to revive Ram Janmabhoomi politics in the state as Modi gears up to pursue an unabashed Hindu agenda. Read More