Nearly a year after receiving a slim mandate in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party finds itself unable to elect a new national president. What should have been a regular organizational infection, a prevalent, converted into a dirty deadlock with implications beyond the party’s internal hierarchy.

Add this vice -president Jagdeep Dhikra to the sudden resignation, entered into the veil acquaintances of ‘health reasons’. More than the uncertain protocol, it has highlighted intensive tension within the power structure of the Sangh Parivar.

A constitutional worker, who began to show signs of institutional freedom, became an uncomfortable person to a leadership, who also demands ideological obedience from constitutional high chairs. His departure underlines the concerns that also explain why the BJP finds itself unable to appoint itself – or untouchability – a new party president in decades. Vacuum at the top is not administrative. It is political – and psychological.

According to the BJP’s Constitution, the three-year term of the party president is expanded-one time. The post was organized by Amit Shah (2014–2020), followed by JP Nadda (2020 -present). While Shah completed the entire five -year term, Nad’s term has already been extended beyond its standard period.

The expansion of NADDA has been justified for the election cycle (2019 and 2024 Lok Sabha elections) and continuity during the pending organizational elections in the states. The BJP’s Parliamentary Board, it is believed that the top decision -making authority has reduced in a rubber stamp. In the last 11 years, its meetings have been far away, making it practically fruitless.

The most immediate barrier for the party is technical – and tell. According to the BJP’s Constitution, at least half of its 36 state and center region units should complete organizational elections before the party’s national president.

Until July 2025, major states like Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Jharkhand and Telangana are not yet concluding the process. In some states like Karnataka and Telangana, factional infiltration has stopped consensus on district-level appointments, making a waterfall of delay in upstream.

It reveals a deep rot in state units – once considered the party’s most combatable ground -level machinery. The 2024 elections exposed cracks in this structure, especially in southern and eastern India.

Delay in state-level reshuffle is a symptom of BJP’s once-flavless command-end-control structure. Electoral dominance model is proving to be brittle in moments that require interactions, consensus and coordination.

Even in traditionally strong states, the turf wars between Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat, the assigned power centers and the growing local leaders have reduced the appointment process.

A subtler beyond procedural obstacles but a more resulting factor: the dynamics of unresolved power between the BJP and its ideological parents, the Rashtriya Vayam Sevayak Sangh (RSS). BJP is in favor of elevating a political heavyweight with Brass – especially Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah – allegedly strong electoral credentials. On the other hand, the RSS is asked to like a leader immersed in organizational work and ideological commitment.

This deviation has created a deadlock. Several rounds of informal counseling among the top officials have failed to obtain consensus. The BJP no longer dances to the tune of the RSS as it did in the Vajpayee -Advani era. But neither is it free from the moral veto of the Sangh.

The RSS sees the BJP president not only as an administrative head but as a protector of the party’s original vision.

The Sangh fears that appointing a leader on the basis of loyalty to Modi-Shah or electoral winner will reduce its long-term impact. The top leadership of the BJP considers the presidential post to execute its political strategy as it prepares for a new cycle of state elections and the 2029 general election.

Shortlist – and it’s not going anywhere

Many names have made rounds. Shivraj Singh Chauhan brings a large number of connect and organizational depth but has a very independent mind. Nirmala Sitaraman has height and ability and, as a woman from Tamil Nadu, examines the symbolic boxes. But does she inspire enough confidence within the party cadre?

D. Purandeshwari and Vanathi Srinivasan provide regional balance and gender representation, but the pan-India is lacking. Both Manohar Lal Khattar and Bhupender Yadav are both reliable administrators, but are considered more as managers than big leaders. Dharmendra Pradhan has an appeal and communication skills, but his limited organizational basis in Odisha is a defect.

The one unites these names, not their suitability, but their inability to galvanize a fragmented consent among the major stakeholders in the party, the union and the leadership of the leadership.

There is also a calculation break in playing. Some BJP internal sources argue that the leadership prefers to wait for an astrological or culturally favorable window – such as the Hindu New Year or after the monsoon session of Parliament – to announce. Others believe that delayed helps Modi-Shah to keep a tight dedication on party equipment, while extensive courses since 2010 are going on.

This break, strategic as it can be, is risky to the vacuum that makes it. Without a clear organizational head, the BJP appears rude at a time when the opposition is reuniting itself, especially under the India Block. In addition, this message that sends internally is disappointing. For a cadre-based party that proud themselves are proud of discipline and structure, the optics of incarnation and flow are harmful.

The symbol of the post of President is also under stress. Traditionally seen as glue that keeps the central leadership and cadre together, the role of the party president becomes important in the time of infection. BJP is no longer at its peak; It requires someone who can re -connect with the base, cover internal groups and navigate the party through an uncertain ideological and electoral terrain.

This is not the first time that the post of party president was included in a formal position. During the Vajpayee -Advani era, leaders like Jan Krishnamurthy and Bangaru Laxman were seen as figures – the real authority was concentrated in the hands of the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister. History, it seems, repeating themselves-a sign of institutional atrophy through the leadership-head leadership.

Since it moves a more election for a more election political future by a decade dominance, can the BJP think beyond its over-central leadership model? For 10 years, Modi and Shah have been the twin architects of the party’s national strategy, leaving very few spaces for independent functioning. Presidential post – Once under leaders like Kushbau Thackeray and Rajnath Singh, a powerful post has become increasingly an expansion of PMO.

If the BJP is to rejuvenate and restore, the President’s position should be filled by someone capable of motivating the cadre, attaching on the same terms with the RSS and the party will have to prepare for a world where Modi is no longer the only election loadstar.

In the coming decade, the size and direction of the BJP will depend on the leadership that the leadership seizes the opportunity to make decisions and strengthen the new voices, or continue to buy time with strategic delay. The longer the vacuum, the more it reduces the reliability of the party – internal, with the cadre; And externally, with voters.

A party that cannot choose its leader, he cannot understand the country that he knows where he is.