A setback in a local election, a public revolt by an MLA, and the increasingly uneasy relationship between elected representatives and party bosses have forced the ruling BJP to change its organisational guard in the South Gujarat districts of Narmada and Bharuch.The changes, announced on Tuesday (September 22), came after months of friction in the neighbouring districts, where disagreements over appointments to party posts, distribution of tickets for elections, and the functioning of the district units repeatedly brought the organisation and elected representatives into conflict.The changes also come against the backdrop of the strong showing by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the Narmada local body elections in April, and the conviction and imprisonment of the party’s Dediapada MLA Chaitar Vasava in a 2023 case of alleged intimidation of forest officers.The new BJP presidents in key districtsFormer Gujarat minister and former Nandod MLA Shabdasharan Tadvi has been appointed the Narmada district BJP president, replacing Neel Rao, while Paresh Kantibhai Lad has replaced Prakash Modi as the BJP’s Bharuch district president.Neither Rao nor Modi has, however, been eased out of the organisation entirely. Both leaders have been appointed vice-presidents of the BJP’s Gujarat OBC Morcha.Also Read | PM Modi’s man in Nitin Nabin’s core team: The Gujarat subplot in BJP rejigLad, the new BJP president in Bharuch, runs a labour-supply business for industries in Dahej and Ankleshwar. Lad has been a BJP worker for 22 of his 52 years, has served as vice-president of the Bharuch BJP for two terms, and has headed the district Bakshi Panch Morcha. He is also the president of the Bharuch District Samasta Prajapati Samaj.The BJP has MLAs in all five seats that are part of Bharuch district – Jambusar, Vagra, Bharuch, Ankleshwar, and Jhagadiya, the ST seat that the party won for the first time in 2022.Story continues below this adIn the two ST seats of Narmada district, the BJP won Nandod in 2022, while Dediapada was won by Chaitar Vasava.Factional fight in Narmada districtThe change of guard in Narmada is the more politically relevant of the two. The appointment of Tadvi as president comes after a prolonged confrontation between Rao and Nandod BJP MLA Dr Darshana Deshmukh, with Bharuch MP Mansukh Vasava throwing his weight behind Deshmukh.The dispute between Rao and Deshmukh burst into public view in June when Deshmukh walked out of a BJP program in Rajpipla to commemorate Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 12 years in office, alleging that she had been humiliated and denied due protocol.Also Read | BJP’s new key roles for three poll-bound states – UP, Punjab and GujaratDeshmukh subsequently sat on a day-long dharna at Gandhi Chowk in Rajpipla, where she was joined by Mansukh Vasava, who demanded Rao’s removal. Vasava’s show of solidarity with Deshmukh was significant – the two leaders, who had previously been at odds, had only recently buried their differences after a joint introspection over the BJP’s poor showing in the Narmada district panchayat elections.Story continues below this adEventually, senior leaders of the party attempted to “mediate” between the warring factions at Kamalam, the state BJP office in Gandhinagar.The long shadow of AAP’s Chaitar VasavaResults of the April 2026 local body elections had exposed the organisational vulnerability of the BJP in Narmada district. The impressive performance by the AAP – powered by the tribal leader and Dediapada MLA Chaitar Vasava – was a major setback for the BJP.The AAP won the Narmada district panchayat with 15 of the 22 seats, and also secured the Dediapada, Sagbara and Garudeshwar taluka panchayats, besides sweeping the newly created Chikhda taluka.While the BJP retained the Nandod and Tilakwada taluka panchayats and the Rajpipla municipality, the defeat in Garudeshwar taluka represented a major setback for the party because it includes Kevadia and the Statue of Unity.Story continues below this adThe victory of the AAP around this hub of tourism came amid sustained local discontent over land acquisition, rehabilitation and employment, issues that Chaitar Vasava had repeatedly raised through his agitations and during his campaign across the tribal belt.Chaitar is in prison after a sessions court in Narmada sentenced him to seven years’ jail in June in a case arising out of the alleged assault and intimidation of forest officials.The Gujarat High Court declined to suspend his sentence – but while his imprisonment removed him from day-to-day political activity, the local body results demonstrated his continued political influence.For the BJP, this was an important learning – and it made the question of an organisational reshuffle especially important ahead of the Assembly elections that are due at the end of next year.Story continues below this adIn Tadvi, Narmada gets a tribal face with ministerial experienceSenior BJP leaders told The Indian Express that the appointment of Tadvi to the top post in Narmada district is being viewed within party circles as carrying both a political and a social significance.As a former minister and former MLA from the region, he has a strong political network on the ground. He is also a tribal leader from the Tadvi community – and several BJP leaders pointed out that the party stands to gain from a tribal face at the head of its organisation in Narmada district, where more than 80% of the population is tribal, and from the representation accorded to the Tadvi sub-community to balance local social equations.Also, while the Narmada BJP gets a tribal leader with a previous electoral and ministerial background, his predecessor Neel Rao, an OBC leader, moves to the state-level OBC Morcha.The power of 7-term MP Mansukh VasavaThe change in Bharuch too follows friction between MP Mansukh Vasava and the district party organisation.Story continues below this adPrakash Modi, the outgoing president who will accompany Neel Rao to the OBC Morcha, had previously acknowledged the tensions within the Bharuch BJP after Vasava publicly objected to the appointment of office-bearers in Jhagadia and Valia in May 2025.Mansukh Vasava, a party veteran who has represented Bharuch in Lok Sabha continuously since 1999, had accused the organisation of favouring Congress defectors while overlooking long-standing BJP workers and ignoring local social equations.Modi had defended the appointments, saying a range of stakeholders had been consulted.Vasava, the seven-term MP, has repeatedly criticized aspects of the state government’s functioning and the party’s local organisation; yet he remains an important figure in the BJP’s tribal politics.Story continues below this adHis public alignment with Deshmukh during the Narmada confrontation had underscored the extent to which the district organisation and elected leadership had drifted apart.For the new district leaderships, a clear-cut taskWith a little over a year to go for the 2027 Assembly elections, the BJP’s new district leaderships in Narmada and Bharuch have their task cut out – to restore coordination between the party cadre and its elected representatives, while rebuilding an organisation that can withstand the increasing influence of Chaitar Vasava in the region.Speaking to The Indian Express on Tuesday, Mansukh Vasava said, “There were no differences that can be seen as being directly responsible for these changes… In a family, some differences do exist, but in the end, we are all soldiers of the BJP.”Also, Vasava said, Rao and Modi had in fact been given “bigger roles” in the state organisation. “The BJP is a party of strong organisational structure and whatever it does is with an eye to strengthen the party’s outreach,” Mansukh Vasava said.Story continues below this adHowever, Vasava did say that “There is no doubt that under Neel Rao, the BJP suffered losses in the tribal areas and the influence of AAP increased.” Tadvi, he said, is “an experienced former minister, and it will benefit the BJP”. In this context, Vasava said that “The presence or absence of Chaitar on the ground cannot change what the BJP does. We are a part of national ideology and that is how we function…”