The Rise and Expansion of the Bharatiya Janata Party

The Bharatiya Janata Party is today the dominant force in Indian politics, leading the central government for three consecutive terms. Yet its journey began modestly. The story of how a party that won just two Lok Sabha seats in 1984 grew into the world’s largest political organisation is one of the most significant transformations in post-independence Indian politics. Understanding this rise helps explain the broader shifts in the country’s party system, electoral behaviour, and ideological landscape over the past four decades.

From Jana Sangh to the Bharatiya Janata Party
The ideological foundation
The early struggles and the breakthrough
The Ram temple movement and electoral gains
The Vajpayee era and the first stable coalitions
A decade out of power
The Modi era and national dominance
The abrogation of Article 370
The 2024 elections and a coalition government
The BJP’s impact on Indian politics

From Jana Sangh to the Bharatiya Janata Party

The BJP’s roots stretch back to the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS), founded on 21 October 1951 in Delhi by Syama Prasad Mookerjee. The Jana Sangh was closely linked to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and advocated rebuilding the nation in line with Hindu cultural values while opposing what it saw as the Congress’s secular policies. In its first general election of 1951-52, the party won just three seats, but it steadily built a presence in the Hindi-speaking northern states.

A major turning point came during the Emergency (1975-77). After the Emergency was lifted, the Jana Sangh merged with several other opposition groups to form the Janata Party, which defeated the Congress and came to power in 1977. This coalition, however, was short-lived. Internal disputes and the controversial demand that members give up their RSS affiliation led to a split. The former Jana Sangh members left and, on 6 April 1980, founded the Bharatiya Janata Party as the direct political successor to the Jana Sangh. Atal Bihari Vajpayee became its first president.

The ideological foundation

The party’s guiding philosophy is Integral Humanism, a doctrine developed by Deendayal Upadhyaya and adopted in 1965 as the official ideology of the Jana Sangh and later the BJP. Integral Humanism rejected both Western capitalist individualism and Marxist socialism, calling instead for an indigenous development model centred on the human being and rooted in cultural-national values. It remains the basic philosophy named in the BJP’s constitution.

Alongside this, the party drew on the broader idea of Hindutva, an ideology that seeks to define national identity in terms of Hindu cultural values. In its early years, the BJP also experimented with the language of “Gandhian Socialism” to broaden its appeal. The combination of cultural nationalism and a critique of the Congress’s dominance would shape the party’s political strategy for decades.

The early struggles and the breakthrough

The BJP’s start was difficult. In the 1984 Lok Sabha elections, held shortly after the assassination of Indira Gandhi, a wave of sympathy gave the Congress a record 414 seats. The BJP managed only two seats. This near-collapse forced the party to rethink its strategy and search for an issue that could give it a distinct identity and mass appeal.

That issue arrived in the form of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement. At its national executive meeting in Palampur, Himachal Pradesh, in June 1989, the BJP adopted a resolution supporting the construction of a Ram temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya. Under the leadership of L.K. Advani, who had taken over as party president in 1986, the temple campaign became the centrepiece of the BJP’s politics.

The Ram temple movement and electoral gains

The results were dramatic. In the 1989 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP’s tally jumped to 85 seats. Advani’s Ram Rath Yatra in 1990 mobilised support across northern India, and in the 1991 elections, often described as the “Mandir versus Mandal” contest, the party won 120 seats. The demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992 deepened the BJP’s identification with Hindutva but also drew sharp criticism and political isolation.

The temple movement transformed the party’s social base. Before Ram Janmabhoomi, the BJP was largely seen as a party of the urban forward castes. The movement allowed it to expand into the middle and lower castes and into rural areas, especially across northern and central India. The symbol of Ram, popular in nearly every village household, became a tool for forging a wider Hindu identity that cut across caste lines.

The Vajpayee era and the first stable coalitions

The mid-1990s saw the BJP emerge as the single largest party but still short of a majority. In 1996, its tally rose to 161 seats, and Vajpayee formed a government that lasted only 13 days for want of parliamentary support. The challenge for the BJP was that its hardline image made it difficult to attract coalition partners.

This is where Vajpayee’s moderate appeal became valuable. By projecting him as a consensus-builder, the party assembled a wider alliance. In the 1999 elections, the BJP won 182 seats, and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the coalition it led, formed a government that completed a full term from 1999 to 2004. This period also saw the Pokhran nuclear tests of 1998 and the Kargil conflict of 1999, both of which strengthened the party’s nationalist credentials. Notably, the BJP toned down its Hindutva rhetoric during this phase to keep its coalition partners comfortable.

A decade out of power

The BJP-led NDA lost the 2004 elections unexpectedly, and the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance governed for the next ten years. Advani’s bid to lead the party to victory as a prime ministerial candidate in 2009 also failed. During this decade, the party struggled with leadership questions and the search for a fresh face who could revive its electoral fortunes.

The Modi era and national dominance

That fresh face was Narendra Modi, the long-serving chief minister of Gujarat, who was projected as the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 elections. Backed by a strong organisational machine and a campaign focused on development, governance, and anti-corruption, the BJP won 282 seats in 2014, the first single-party majority in the Lok Sabha in three decades. The NDA’s combined tally reached 336 seats.

The party consolidated its position even further in 2019, winning 303 seats on its own, with the NDA reaching 353. Under Modi and party president Amit Shah, the BJP extended its reach well beyond its traditional Hindi-belt strongholds into eastern, north-eastern, and southern regions, establishing itself as a genuinely national party rather than a regional one.

The abrogation of Article 370

One of the defining moves of the second Modi government was the abrogation of Article 370 on 5 August 2019. This provision had granted special status and a degree of autonomy to Jammu and Kashmir. The government revoked it and bifurcated the former state into two Union Territories. The decision was upheld by a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court in December 2023. For the BJP, the move fulfilled a long-standing ideological commitment shared with the RSS and became a central plank of its political messaging.

The construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, consecrated in January 2024, similarly fulfilled a promise that had appeared in BJP manifestos since the early 1990s. Together, Article 370 and the Ram temple represented the realisation of two foundational goals of the Hindutva movement.

The 2024 elections and a coalition government

The 2024 general election produced a more complex result. The BJP won 240 seats on its own, down from 303 in 2019, losing its single-party majority. The NDA as a whole secured 293 of the 543 seats, allowing Modi to take oath as Prime Minister for a third consecutive term in June 2024. The opposition INDIA bloc performed better than expected, winning 234 seats, with the Congress recovering to 99 seats. Significantly, the BJP lost the Faizabad seat, which includes Ayodhya itself, a result that surprised many observers.

The BJP’s impact on Indian politics

The rise of the BJP has reshaped the Indian party system. The decline of the Congress and the BJP’s growth, fuelled by the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, helped usher in an era of coalition governments from 1989 onwards. The party’s success also marked the mainstreaming of Hindutva and cultural nationalism within India’s political discourse.

Beyond ideology, the BJP built a formidable organisational network, drawing on the broader Sangh Parivar that includes the RSS, the youth and women’s wings, and affiliated labour and farmer organisations. This organisational depth, combined with strong central leadership, has allowed the party to dominate both national and state-level politics in much of the country. Its trajectory from the margins to the centre of power illustrates how ideology, leadership, mobilising issues, and organisation can together transform a party’s fortunes over time.

What do you think? Was the BJP’s transformation driven more by its ideology and mobilising issues like the Ram temple, or by organisational strength and effective leadership? And how do you think the loss of a single-party majority in 2024 might shape the party’s strategy in the years ahead?

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Table of Contents

From Jana Sangh to the Bharatiya Janata Party 🔗

The ideological foundation 🔗

The early struggles and the breakthrough 🔗

The Ram temple movement and electoral gains 🔗

The Vajpayee era and the first stable coalitions 🔗

A decade out of power 🔗

The Modi era and national dominance 🔗

The abrogation of Article 370 🔗

The 2024 elections and a coalition government 🔗

The BJP’s impact on Indian politics 🔗