Bharatiya Janata Party: Indian political party
The Bharatiya Janata Party (abbreviated BJP) is one of the two major political parties in India.
(The second being the Indian National Congress). Since the Indian elections in 2014, the BJP has 303 of the 542 seats in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Parliament of India and 78 of the 238 seats in Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Parliament of India. Amit Shah is the national president of BJP since 2014.
Bharatiya Janata Party | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Abbreviation | BJP |
| President | Jagat Prakash Nadda |
| Parliamentary Chairperson | Narendra Modi |
| Lok Sabha leader | Narendra Modi (Prime Minister) |
| Rajya Sabha leader | Piyush Goyal (Minister of Textiles) |
| Founder | |
| Founded | 6 April 1980 |
| Preceded by |
|
| Headquarters | 6-A, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Marg, New Delhi-110002 |
| Youth wing | Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha |
| Women's wing | BJP Mahila Morcha |
| Labour wing | Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh |
| Peasant's wing | BJP Kisan Morcha |
| Minority wing | BJP Minority Morcha |
| Membership |  180 million (2019) |
| Ideology |
|
| Political position | Right-wing |
| International affiliation |
|
| Colours | Saffron |
| ECI Status | National Party |
| Alliance |
|
| Seats in Lok Sabha | 303 / 545 (currently 543 members + 2 nominated) |
| Seats in Rajya Sabha | 78 / 245 (currently 233 members + 12 nominated) |
| Seats in Vidhan Sabha(s) | 1,331 / 4,071 |
| Seats in Vidhan Parishad(s) | 91 / 426 |
| Website | |
| www | |
Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Deputy Prime Minister L. K. Advani founded the party in April 1980.
"Bharatiya" means "Indian" and "Janata" means "People". The BJP's political beliefs are similar to the beliefs of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
History
Bharatiya Jana Sangh
The history of the Bharatiya Janata Party starts with the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (abbreviated BJS). The BJS was a political party created by Syama Prasad Mookerjee in 1951. At that time, the Indian National Congress was the political party that ruled India. The BJS's goal was to stop the Indian National Congress's policies.
Many people thought the BJS was part of the RSS because they had the same ideologies on leading the Government of India.
Campaign for Kashmir
The party's first election campaign was about Kashmir. Kashmir was an area divided between India and Pakistan(2393squareKm). The BJS wanted to make Kashmir a part of India. The party's founder, Mookerjee, was arrested for protesting in Kashmir, when he was ordered not to do so. He died in prison, so Deendayal Upadhyay became the party's leader.
Even though there was slight public support for the party because of the campaign about Kashmir, the BJS only managed to win three seats in the Lok Sabha in the 1952 elections.
Later elections
In the 1967 Indian elections, many political parties, including the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, joined up together to win a majority of the seats of many Indian states, including Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh. This was the first time the BJS had held any political office. In 1977, after the end of a State of Emergency declared by the Congress Government, BJS joined with several other parties to form BJP.
In 1996 BJP became the largest party in Parliament. It did poorly in the 2004 elections and became the major opposition party. The 2014 elections gave BJP enough seats to form a government.
References
This article uses material from the Wikipedia Simple English article Bharatiya Janata Party, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license ("CC BY-SA 3.0"); additional terms may apply (view authors). Content is available under CC BY-SA 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
®Wikipedia is a registered trademark of the Wiki Foundation, Inc. Wiki Simple English (DUHOCTRUNGQUOC.VN) is an independent company and has no affiliation with Wiki Foundation.