BJP picks 45-year-old Bihar minister Nabin as national working president

The ruling BJP on Sunday sprang a surprise by naming Bihar Cabinet Minister Nitin Nabin as the party’s national working president and setting the stage for a generational change.

Nabin (45) is all set to become the BJP’s youngest-ever president in the party’s 45-year history. The previous youngest BJP chief was Nitin Gadkari, who took charge at 52 years of age.

Top BJP sources said the election of Nabin as the national president was a formality which would be completed once the formalities for the internal poll to the highest party office were completed.

Nabin, a five-term MLA from Patna’s Bankipur and Minister for Road Construction, Urban Development and Housing in the Nitish Kumar-led NDA dispensation in Bihar, will also be the first-ever BJP president from Bihar as well as from eastern India. His elevation on the West Bengal poll eve is significant.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself signalled Nabin’s eventual rise as the new BJP national president today.

“Nitin Nabin ji has distinguished himself as a hardworking karyakarta. He is a young and industrious leader with rich organisational experience and has an impressive record as an MLA as well as a minister in Bihar for multiple terms. He has diligently worked to fulfil people’s aspirations. He is known for his humble nature and grounded style of working. I am confident that his energy and dedication will strengthen our party in the times to come. Congratulations to him on becoming the BJP national working president,” PM Modi said after the BJP parliamentary board, the party’s highest decision-making body, approved Nabin’s nomination as the working president.

Nabin will replace JP Nadda, who had first become the BJP working president in 2019 before getting elected as the party’s full-time chief in January 2020.

Under the BJP constitution, the party president is elected for three years but Nadda has been on extension.

The BJP national presidential poll has been delayed inordinately. It was originally scheduled for January this year.

Nabin, like outgoing BJP chief Nadda, hails from an upper caste. He is a Kayastha who make up for less than 1 per cent of the Bihar population and hails from an illustrious BJP family. His father Nabin Kishore Sinha was a seven-term MLA from Patna West.

It was after father’s demise that Nabin won the byelection from Patna West (now Bankipur) and became an MLA for the first time in 2006. He has since won Bankipur in the 2010, 2015, 2020 and 2025 elections.

A low profile leader, Nabin made his mark in 2023 when as co-in-charge of Chhattisgarh, he injected life into a moribund BJP unit of Chhattisgarh leading the party to an emphatic win in the state Assembly elections that year. Nabin was widely hailed in the BJP as the brain behind Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel’s fall in Chhattisgarh.

In March 2024, Nabin was appointed the BJP in-charge of Chhattisgarh and named the state’s Lok Sabha poll pointsman in 2024. The party bagged 10 of the state’s 11 parliamentary segments. Earlier, Nabin was BJP in-charge for Sikkim.

Nabin, party sources said, had two decades of organisational experience. He rose up the ranks from the position of national general secretary and state president (Bihar) of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) to the national general secretary of the BJYM where he was involved in various youth movements, including the National Unity Yatra in Jammu and Kashmir and a tribute march from Guwahati to Tawang for the 1965 martyrs.

“Nabin brings along a unique blend of experience and youth. He is a five-time MLA and two-term minister who has handled key portfolios and exhibited administrative acumen. He has also shown tremendous promise as Chhattisgarh in-charge of the BJP,” said a senior BJP source.

In the 2020 Bihar poll, Nabin shot to fame by comprehensively defeating Congress candidate Luv Sinha, son of actor Shatrughan Sinha, from Bankipur.

Nabin’s elevation comes just ahead of key elections in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Assam in 2026 with the party hoping to reap benefits from his organisational skills.

Nabin is also acceptable to the RSS — the BJP’s parent organisation — having served in the BJYM.

Interestingly, Nabin, like Nadda, cut political teeth in the BJP youth organisations in Bihar.

Nadda began his public life from the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad and Nabin from the BJYM.