Will India's ruling BJP make history with a woman president? These names, all hailing from south India, are doing the rounds
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "Will India's ruling BJP make history with a woman president? These names, all hailing from south India, are doing the rounds")
Nirmala Sitharaman, Daggubati Purandeswari and Vanathi Srinivasan Photograph: (Others)
The names of Nirmala Sitharaman and Daggubati Purandeswari Purandeswari are doing the rounds, among others. Interestingly, all the top woman contenders for the post happen to be from south India, where the BJP is trying to expand.
There is widespread buzz in Indian media that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) might name a woman president for the first time since its foundation in 1980. The names of Nirmala Sitharaman and Daggubati Purandeswari Purandeswari are doing the rounds, among others. Interestingly, all the top woman contenders for the post happen to be from south India, where the BJP is trying to expand.
BJP's organisational restructuring
Currently, the party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is filling top positions at the local level in six states and six Union Territories. The attention will then shift to the national president.
JP Nadda, who has been the national president since 2020, got an extention of his term till 2024, after it ended in 2023. This was done in order for him to help the party through the 2024 Lok Sabha election. BJP won those elections, but the post of president is yet to be filled.
Among the names for the top party post, the most prominent are that of Nirmala Sitharaman, the Indian finance minister, and D Purandeswari, the former Andhra Pradesh unit chief of the party.
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Nirmala Sitharaman, a strong and steady leader
Sitaraman is arguably the most high-profile among the woman leaders of BJP currently. As finance minister, she steered India through some challenging times in spite of global economic headwinds. Having been finance minister since 2019, the alumnus of India's prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru Univeristy is among the most influential women in BJP at present. The fact that she hails from the Tamil Nadu state may also play in the minds of the party elders, as BJP is looking to expand its footprint in southern states. According to reports, Sitaraman recently had a meetin with Nadda and BJP's General Secretary BL Santhosh.
Daggubati Purandeswari
D Purandeswari is another very active face of BJP in the south, having overseen its growth in the past few years as its former Andhra Pradesh chief. When India sent a diplomatic delegation to various countries to explain Operation Sindoor and India's anti-terrorism stance, Purandeswari was one of them.
Vanathi Srinivasan
Vanathi Srinivasan is most famous for having defeated Tamil superstar Kamal Hassan in 2021. Srinivasan was BJP's Mahila Morcha National President, and won the Coimbatore (South) seat in Tamil Nadu. Srinivasan has been part of BJP’s Central Election Committee since 2022, having been associated with the saffron party since 1993.
