Gadkari Takes over as BJP President
Still reeling from the impact of a huge electoral loss in this year’s parliamentary elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday appointed Maharashtra party unit chief, Nitin Gadkari, as its national president at a meeting in New Delhi attended by host of top party leaders.
The 52 year old Gadkari, who succeeds Rajnath Singh to become the youngest president of the party and the first one from Maharashtra, is to lead the BJP through what is widely being viewed as a generational shift.
Speaking earlier in the day Gadkari said he did not view politics as a career but as the means to bring socio-economic change to the lives of the poor and downtrodden.
His appointment at the helm of the country’s main Opposition came a day after Vidisha parliamentarian Sushma Swaraj took over as Leader of Opposition from BJP patriarch LK Advani, who will now serve as the Chairman of the BJP Parliamentary Party – a post specially created for the man behind the party’s meteoric rise in the 1980-1990s.
