Union Health Minister and senior BJP leader JP Nadda has been appointed as the Leader of the House in the Rajya Sabha today. Mr Nadda also holds the Chemicals and Fertilizers portfolio in the Cabinet.
The Union Minister will be replacing Piyush Goyal as the Leader of the House. During Prime Minister Modi's second tenure, Mr Goyal was the Leader of the House in Rajya Sabha.
After he was sworn in there was speculation Mr Nadda would step down from his BJP National President post, which he took over from current Union Home Minister Amit Shah in 2020.
However, it now appears Mr Nadda will remain the BJP's top organisational leader.
Party laws say a National President is elected only after organisational elections are completed in 50 per cent of all states, which is expected to continue for about six months.
About JP Nadda
The new president, therefore, may be elected in December-January.
Nadda, who holds a degree in law, started his political journey with the ABVP, or Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the students' wing of the RSS, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh that is the BJP's ideological mentor. He became leader of the party's youth wing, the BJYM, or the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, in 1991.
He was first elected to the Rajya Sabha in 2012 - from Himachal Pradesh - and was made a member of the BJP's parliamentary board in 2014 when Amit Shah took over as the party's President.
He earlier also served as an MLA in the Himachal Pradesh Assembly; he won the Bilaspur seat three times - 1993, 1998, and 2007 - and served as the Health Minister between 1998 and 2003.
In April this year he was elected as the Rajya Sabha MP from Gujarat.
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