BJP’s Bihar and Delhi units get new chiefs in Rai, Tiwari

After almost two years’ delay, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah appointed Parliamentarians Manoj Tiwari (45) and Nityanand Rai (50) as party’s Delhi and Bihar unit presidents, respectively, on Wednesday.

Political observers feel, though other two strong contenders and party Parliamentarians Ramesh Bidhuri and Meenakshi Lekhi were in the race, but it is also believed that the appointment of Bhojpuri singer-turned-politician Manoj Tiwari came after viewing the demographic change of Delhi, with significant chunk of population consisting of the settlers from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Keeping this in mind Tiwari was made to contest Lok Sabha polls from North-east Delhi despite his request for ticket from Buxar in Bihar in 2014 elections.

Adding more, now the main task for Tiwari is to re-strategies to beat the decade-long ant incumbency factor against the BJP in the upcoming MCD elections and checking the rise of the AAP at the municipal ward level.

Apart from AAP, Congress chief Ajay Maken, who has been also working in the slum colonies and unauthorized colonies to lay the path of the revival of the party in the national capital, could also be very challenging to the Parliamentarian. 

On the other side post Bihar-debacle, the saffron party also realized to go for non Brahmin face as they share only 5.04% of the entire population in the state. Nityanand Rai, who is a Yadav face and enjoys support of RSS surfaced in Shah’s list of state chiefs as Yadavs share 14.04% of the entire population. Despite being a Yadav, a loyal support base of RJD chief Lalu Prasad, and thrice having got elected as MLA from Hajipur, which has significant presence of people from the community, Rai would seek to make inroads into the core constituency of the RJD chief. He along with a few other state leaders had rebelled against the leadership of Sushil Kumar Modi a few years ago.