Political journey, in eight chapters

His public life began in Patna during the Bihar movement led by Jayaprakash Narayan. The Rajya Sabha biodata records that the movement inspired him to join the Chhatra Sangharsh Samiti and that he played a role in the student movement of 1975. He became active in the ABVP in Patna.

In Shimla, where he studied law, he was elected President of the Student Central Association of Himachal Pradesh University in 1983. He then became a full-time ABVP organiser, in Himachal Pradesh and later in Delhi.

The Early Life page covers this chapter in more detail.

By the end of the 1980s his work had moved from student organising to the Bharatiya Janata Party. Government profiles record organisational responsibility for the party in Himachal Pradesh from 1990. In 1991 he became National President of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, the party’s youth wing.

In 1993 he contested the Himachal Pradesh Assembly election from Bilaspur and won. That result opened his legislative career.

He was a member of the Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly for three terms: 1993–1998, 1998–2003 and 2007–2012, each time for Bilaspur. He was not in the Assembly between 2003 and 2007.

From 1994 to 1998 he led the BJP group in the Assembly. Government of India profiles describe this role as Leader of the Opposition. His second and third terms included service in the state cabinet (chapter 04). He left the Assembly in 2012, when he was elected to the Rajya Sabha.

From 1998 to 2003 he was Cabinet Minister for Health and Family Welfare and for Parliamentary Affairs in the Government of Himachal Pradesh. He would later hold the health portfolio at the Union level.

In his third Assembly term he returned to the state cabinet, holding Forest and Science and Technology among other portfolios. On 18 March 2010, after he was appointed a National General Secretary of the BJP, he submitted his resignation from the state cabinet.

He became a National General Secretary of the BJP in 2010, under the presidency of Nitin Gadkari, and was reappointed in 2013. From 2014 he was Secretary of the party’s Parliamentary Board and of its Central Election Committee.

For most of this chapter he held party office alongside parliamentary and, from November 2014, ministerial office.

In April 2012 he was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Himachal Pradesh. In his first term he served on the Rajya Sabha committees on Health and Family Welfare and on Privileges, among others.

On 9 November 2014 he was sworn in as Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare and served until 30 May 2019. During this tenure Mission Indradhanush was launched (December 2014), the Union Cabinet approved the National Health Policy 2017, and in May 2015 he was elected President of the 68th World Health Assembly in Geneva. In 2018 he was re-elected to the Rajya Sabha from Himachal Pradesh.

On 17 June 2019 the BJP’s Parliamentary Board appointed him the party’s National Working President. Amit Shah remained President at the time. On 20 January 2020 he was elected unopposed as National President, succeeding Amit Shah.

In January 2023 the party’s National Executive extended his tenure. He remained President through 2024 and 2025. On 20 January 2026 Nitin Nabin, who had been appointed National Working President in December 2025, was declared elected unopposed as National President. Official reports list Nadda among his proposers.

This website records these organisational offices as facts of his career. It does not describe or assess party strategy or electoral outcomes.

On 20 February 2024 he was declared elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha from Gujarat. He resigned his Himachal Pradesh seat with effect from 4 March 2024. His Gujarat term began on 3 April 2024 and he took the oath on 6 April 2024.

He was sworn in as a Cabinet Minister on 9 June 2024. On 10 June he was allotted the portfolios of Health and Family Welfare and of Chemicals and Fertilizers, and he took charge of both ministries on 11 June. On 24 June 2024, the first day of the session, the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha announced him as Leader of the House.

See Parliament and Ministerial Responsibilities.