Setting the ball rolling for organisational elections in the BJP, leading up to the selection of a new party president, J P Nadda Tuesday named K Laxman as national returning officer, along with three national co-returning officers, Naresh Bansal, Rekha Verma and Sambit Patra.
“This team will now decide how to conduct the elections as per the party’s constitution and also decide who the election officers in the states will be,” said a party leader.
He added that the ongoing party membership drive will be over in 15 days, and then the process of organisational elections will start.
As always, the elections to the party’s local committees will be held first, followed by polls for the mandal, district, regional and state committees. The president elected at each level nominates a team of office-bearers. Once elections to half the states are held, an election is held for a full-time national president. The new national president then nominates a team of office-bearers. The whole process takes about two months.
Significantly, while the party constitution lays out the provisions of an electoral college for the selection of its national president, there has never been a contest for the post in the BJP since its formation in 1980. Every time, only one candidate has filed the nomination for the party chief’s post, who has then been elected unopposed.
The only time when there was a flutter regarding a possible presidential contest in the BJP was in 2013, when then party leader Yashwant Sinha procured nomination papers before the elections. His plans lasted all of one day, with Sinha choosing not to follow through.
Should there be more than one candidate after the date of withdrawal of nominations, the BJP constitution lays out, polling is to be held in all state capitals on the appointed day, by polling officers appointed by the all-India returning officer. The sealed ballot boxes are to be then brought to Delhi, and the votes counted. The candidate with the highest number of votes is to be declared elected.
A BJP national president can have a maximum of two consecutive terms of three years each. This amendment was made in 2012, when the RSS wanted Nitin Gadkari to head the BJP for a second consecutive term. However, at the last moment, Rajnath Singh replaced Gadkari, and held the post till the party won the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Amit Shah replaced him as the BJP chief then. Nadda has been party chief since January 2020, and is on an extension.
Only ‘active’ members of the BJP can contest in its organisational elections. To be an ‘active’ member, a person needs to have been a primary member of the party for three years. Any Indian citizen, 18 years of age or above, can become a primary member of the BJP on payment of a prescribed subscription for a period of six years, after which he has to fill the membership form again to remain a member.
A primary member must also declare belief in and commitment to Deen Dayal Upadhyayay’s concept of “integral humanism”, nationalism, national integration, democracy, the Gandhian approach to socio-economic issues, positive secularism and value-based politics, says the BJP constitution.
Aspiring members have to declare that they subscribe to the idea of a secular state and a nation not based on religion, and that they do not believe in discrimination on the basis of caste, sex or religion.
Active members are expected to take part in the party’s agitational programmes – and their participation is supposed to be recorded. They must subscribe to the party magazine at the state or Central level.
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