Bharatiya Janata Party : BJP History, Info and News

Bharatiya Janata Party ( BJP ) is the biggest political party in India. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under Narendra Modi. The BJP is aligned with right wing politics, and its policies have historically reflected a traditional Hindu nationalist ideology, it has close ideological and organisational links to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The official ideology of the BJP is integral humanism, which was first formulated by Indian politician Pt. Deendayal Upadhyaya in 1965. Compared to Congress, the BJP takes a more aggressive and nationalistic position on defence policy and terrorism.

The BJP traces its roots to the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS), which was established in 1951 by Syama Prasad Mookerjee. The BJS advocated the rebuilding of India in accordance with Hindu culture and called for the formation of a strong unified state. It’s first major campaign, begun in early 1953, centred on a demand for the complete integration of Jammu and Kashmir into India. Mookerjee was arrested in May 1953 for violating orders from the state government restraining him from entering Kashmir. He died of a heart attack the following month, while still in jail. After Mookerjee leadership went to Murli Chandra Sharma, then Pt. Deendayal Upadhyay, then Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The major themes on the party’s agenda during this period were legislating a uniform civil code, banning cow slaughter and abolishing the special status given to Jammu and Kashmir.

After The Emergency of 1975–1977, the Jana Sangh merged with several other political parties to form the Janata Party; won a majority in 1977 and formed a government with Morarji Desai as Prime Minister. The former Jana Sangh contributed the largest tally to the Janata Party’s parliamentary contingent, with 93 seats. Vajpayee, previously the leader of the Jana Sangh, was appointed the Minister of External Affairs. After three years in power, the government collapsed in July 1979. The BJP was formally established in 1980, following a split by dissidents within the Janata coalition, whose leaders wanted to prohibit elected BJS officials from participating in the RSS. The BJS subsequently reorganized itself as the BJP under the leadership of Vajpayee, Lal Krishan Advani, and Murali Manohar Joshi.

Although initially winning only two seats in the 1984 general election, it grew in strength on the back of the movement around Ram Janmabhoomi in Uttar Pradesh. In 1984, Advani was appointed president of the party, and under him it became the political voice of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement. In September 1990, Advani began a Rath Yatra to Ayodhya in support of the Ram temple movement. In December 1991, then BJP President Murli Manohar Joshi held another Yatra, The Ekta Yatra,  intended to signal that BJP supported national unity and opposed separatist movements. It began on 11 December in Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu and visited 14 states. The rally’s final stop to hoist the Indian flag in Jammu and Kashmir on 26 January 1992.

Following victories in several state elections and better performances in national elections, the BJP became the largest political party in the Parliament in 1996; however, it lacked a majority in the Lok Sabha, and its government, under its then leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee, lasted for only 13 days. After the 1998 general election, the BJP led coalition known as the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) under prime minister Vajpayee formed a government that lasted for a year. Following fresh elections, the NDA government again headed by Vajpayee lasted for a full term in office; this was the first non Congress government to do so. The Vajpayee government ordered the Indian armed forces to expel the Pakistani soldiers occupying Kashmir territory, later known as the Kargil War.

In the 2004 general election, the NDA suffered an unexpected defeat. In May 2008, the BJP won the state elections in Karnataka. This was the first time that the party won assembly elections in any South Indian state. In the 2009 general elections, its strength in the Lok Sabha was reduced to 116 seats. It lost the Karnataka assembly election in 2013. However, Narendra Modi, who was then serving as the chief minister of Gujarat, led it to a landslide victory in the 2014 general election. Modi was sworn in as the 14th Prime Minister of India on 26 May 2014. In April 2015, the BJP stated that it had more than 100 million registered members, which would make it the world’s largest political party by primary membership.

In 2019, the BJP won the general election with a majority. Soon after coming to power, on 5 August 2019, the Modi administration revoked the special status granted under Article 370 to Jammu and Kashmir. Later in 2019, the Modi government introduced the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, which was passed by the Parliament of India on 11 December 2019. It amended the Citizenship Act, 1955 by providing a path to Indian citizenship for illegal immigrants of Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, or Christian religion, who had fled persecution from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan before December 2014. In March 2020 the spread of the global COVID-19 pandemic prompted the government to implement a strict national lockdown until June.

The BJP supports a uniform civil code, which would apply a common set of personal laws to every citizen regardless of their personal religion, replacing the existing laws which vary by religious community. The Modi government has conducted several strikes on territory controlled by neighbouring countries on counterterrorism grounds. This included a 2015 Indian counter-insurgency operation in Myanmar against the National Socialist Council of Nagaland, the 2016 Indian Line of Control strike in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, and the 2019 Balakot airstrike in Pakistan. It also militarily intervened during the 2017 Doklam standoff with China.

Seats won by BJP in General Elections :

Presidents of BJP Till Now :

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