Opinion | BJP's New Team For 2029: No Big Bang, But Many Signals

Updated: Aug 20, 2026 12:40 pm IST Published On Aug 20, 2026 12:40 pm IST Last Updated On Aug 20, 2026 12:40 pm IST

Published On Aug 20, 2026 12:40 pm IST

Last Updated On Aug 20, 2026 12:40 pm IST

“We were expecting a big splash. A sonic boom,” said a BJP leader after party President Nitin Nabin on Monday announced the list of BJP office bearers who, from now on, can be called Nabin's playing XI or BJP's Team For 2029.

A quick read of the list will present a simplistic inference that team members brought in by J P Nadda as president in August 2022 have either been rewarded, retained or replaced by someone. Let's first deal with who is in and who is out.

In the team Nitin Nabin inherited from J P Nadda, there were 11 vice presidents.

Only 4 have been retained.

In place of the 7 dropped vice presidents, 9 new faces have been inducted.

The standout inclusion is RSS man Ram Madhav.

The general secretaries are the cutting edge of BJP's working and electoral machinery. The outgoing team had 6 general secretaries and one National General Secretary (Organisation), RSS man B L Santosh. Santosh stays as the RSS man in BJP's structure as national general secretary. This signals continuity.

Only two general secretaries, Sunil Bansal and Vinod Tawde, have been retained.

Four others have been replaced while two have been inducted to fill vacancies.

Ex-Minister Smriti Irani, ex-Tripura chief minister Biplab Deb, Harish Dwevidi, ex-MP from Basti in UP, ex-Rajasthan BJP president Satish Poonia, Gajendra Patel and Sanjay Bhatia are in.

All but one National Secretary have been replaced.

There has been a complete overhaul in the various mass organisations. The high-profile Yuva Morcha chief Tejasvi Surya has been replaced by 35-year-old Vadodara MP Hemang Joshi.

The Mahila, OBC, Kisan, SC, ST and Minority Morcha chiefs have been replaced.

There have been two other key ousters and inclusions.

Social Media Cell will be headed by Deepak Mahaske, who replaces Amit Malviya. The party Treasurer's post is now with Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal.

The list does lack a big wow factor. Nothing really leaps out like a scintilla, capable of starting a major buzz.

But with this list, Narendra Modi-led BJP has rested its penchant for a spectacle - the big splash. Barring a brief time in 2015, when the BJP lost Delhi and Bihar assembly polls, the party president's team was picked with the mindset of a conqueror.

This time, the team has been picked with an eye on the challenges faced for consolidation and correction. It's a walk back to the basics.

Sources say the base list of probables was very long. Compiled from multiple inputs, including the RSS, it went through multiple filters. Amit Shah, Nitin Nabin, B L Santosh and J P Nadda formed the key screening committee. The BJP had detailed reports on each........

© NDTV