New Delhi: Nitin Nabin, a five-term Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA, and the son of Nabin Kishore Sinha, a four-time member of the Bihar legislative assembly, took charge as the saffron party’s new national president on Tuesday (January 20). While Nabin was elected with no other candidate even in the fray, the new BJP president as well as Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed the party’s democratic process in choosing its chief. Nabin, a political dynast himself, hailed the BJP as the only party in which “it is not necessary to belong to any particular family to hold major positions and great responsibilities.”Despite his political lineage, 45-year-old Nabin, the party’s youngest president, in his first statement as BJP president said that becoming the party’s president “is an honour bestowed upon the extraordinary journey of an ordinary worker and a firm resolve for service.”“The BJP is the only party in the country where it is not necessary to belong to any particular family to hold major positions and great responsibilities. Here, being an ordinary worker is the greatest qualification. In this very organisation, a person from an ordinary family can become the country’s prime minister, and an ordinary worker can rise to a responsibility like national president,” he said.Nabin was made the BJP chief in the presence of Prime Minister Modi, former party presidents and Union ministers Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari and Rajnath Singh at the party headquarters. Despite being elected unopposed, Modi said that the election has been conducted in a “100% democratic manner.”In a bid to project the authority of the new BJP president, Modi in his speech said that Nabin was his “boss” and called himself an ordinary party worker. However, the prime minister’s speech lasted for 49 minutes, while the new president spoke for only about 20 minutes in a speech that was full of reverential references to Modi.“People may think that Narendra Modi is the Prime Minister of the country, has become the Prime Minister for the third time, became chief minister at only 50 years of age, been the head of government for 25 years. All this is in its place but above all this is that I am a BJP worker. This is my biggest pride. When it comes to party matters, then Nitin Nabin is my boss and I am only a worker,” said Modi.Nabin in his address thanked Modi and the party’s senior leadership for proposing him as the president, alluding to the real power structure at play.Nabin made repeated references to Modi in his speech and said that his slogan of “sabka saath, sabka vikas” was being realised by BJP workers through the construction of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya and the reading down of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, among other things. “By making governance a form of service, the honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the last 25 years – first in Gujarat and now at the centre – has been a source of inspiration and standard for new workers like me. I will say that the model of good governance that has been established by him should be adopted by all state governments, only then we can take vikas to the last person,” he said.The Wire has reported that Nabin’s elevation follows the Modi-Shah template of consolidating power in their hands. The template involves rendering other leaders voiceless, not nurturing second-rung leadership, elevating relatively unknown faces as chief ministers – as in Madhya Pradesh (Mohan Yadav), Chhattisgarh (Vishnu Deo Sai), Odisha (Mohan Majhi) – while effectively sidelining established faces like former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, former Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar, who have both been accommodated as Union ministers, despite the BJP winning assembly elections in their respective states. Nabin’s predecessor Nadda too was elected unopposed in 2020. While Nadda’s tenure was extended for over 18 months, the delay in appointing a new president stemmed from internal factions in various states delaying unit-level elections. Even when leaderships in state units were elected to fulfil the requirements of the electoral college that chooses the party president, differences between the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Modi-led BJP over the next batch of national office bearers further delayed the decision.Nabin begins innings with settled talking pointsWhile Nabin’s elevation as the party president has been touted as a generational shift in the BJP, the new president in his speech settled on talking points that seemed to have been set by the top leadershipWith key assembly elections due to take place in Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Kerala and Puducherry where they saffron party is keen to make gains, and Assam where the party is already in power, the new president spoke about the alleged demographic change in these states as one of the core reasons why a BJP government is essential.“In the next few months elections will be held in Tamil Nadu, Assam, Kerala and Puducherry and West Bengal. There is a lot of discussion on the demography. How in a changed demography things are being altered and there it is a challenge for us. But we are fully confident that BJP workers, through their hard work and determination, will ensure the party’s success in all these five states,” said Nabin.Nabin also referred to the Karthigai Deepam festival in Tamil Nadu and said that the party must ensure “those who deny the existence of Ram Setu and oppose the Karthigai Deepam festival have no place in Indian politics.”“If we have to fight to protect Sanatan traditions and safeguard the core of our culture, and if we are determined to protect our nation, then we must emerge as a strong force in these five states,” he added.‘Urban Naxals and illegal immigrants’Nabin’s speech followed Modi’s in which the prime minister once again referred to alleged “Urban Naxals” and illegal immigrants as challenges that India is facing.“Today, the country faces a huge challenge from illegal immigrants and the resulting demographic imbalance. Even the world’s wealthiest and most powerful countries are investigating and apprehending illegal immigrants within their borders and deporting them. And the world doesn’t question them, asking why are you deporting these illegal immigrants? You were waving the flag of democracy. You were acting like the rulers of the world, so why are you doing this?” said Modi.“No country in the world accepts illegal immigrants. India, too, cannot allow illegal immigrants to steal the rights of our poor and our youth. Illegal immigrants pose a great threat to the country’s security. Identifying them and sending them back to their countries is absolutely essential. We must expose, with all our might, those political parties that are protecting or covering up for illegal immigrants for the sake of vote bank politics. We must expose them to the public.”Modi also referred to “urban naxalism” as a “major challenge” and said those who speak in his favour are hounded.“Another major challenge is Urban Naxalism. The scope of urban Naxalism is becoming international. If anyone tweets something positive about Modi even once or twice a year, or says something positive on TV, or writes something positive in a newspaper, some journalists humiliate them so much that they are hounded and made untouchable. They are silenced so that they can never speak again,” he said.“This is the style of Urban Naxals. For years, they isolated the BJP and treated us like untouchables throughout the country. Now the country is understanding the actions of these Urban Naxals. Urban Naxals are continuously working to harm India.”