NEW DELHI: Jagat Prakash Nadda, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national president and Union minister, has been appointed the leader of the House in the Rajya Sabha. Nadda takes over from Union minister Piyush Goyal, who recently won the Lok Sabha elections and was sworn in as a member of that House on Monday.

Nadda holds the portfolios of health, chemicals, and fertilisers in the Union Council of Ministers. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge is the leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha. Former Union minister Arun Jaitley was the leader of the House in the Rajya Sabha from 2014 to 2019, with Goyal succeeding him from 2019 to 2024.

The BJP’s constitution adheres to the ‘one person, one post’ principle, which would entail that Nadda, now a Union minister, should step down as the party’s chief. He assumed the role in 2020, succeeding Amit Shah, who had become the Union home minister. However, party sources indicated that Nadda will continue as the national chief until the party’s organisational elections are completed. The party constitution says it could elect its national president after completing organisational elections in 50 per cent of all states. Sources said the process could take up to six months.

Nadda was elected a BJP legislator in Himachal Pradesh from Bilaspur in 1993, 1998, and 2007 and was the state’s health minister from 1998 to 2003. He debuted in the Rajya Sabha in 2012 from Himachal Pradesh. He was inducted into the BJP’s parliamentary board, its highest decision-making body, in 2014 when Shah succeeded Rajnath Singh as the party president. Nadda was elected to the Rajya Sabha for a third term in April this year from Gujarat.

PTI

Agencies