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B.A, LL. B (Hons.) / First semester

POLITICAL SCIENCE

TOPIC:- BHARTIYA JANTA PARTY REFLECTIONS ON ITS

BEING A PARTY IN POWER

Submitted to :*

Saranya Nair

Submitted by:

Tanvi Shah

Sap id: 81012100038

Roll no: A023

Table of Contents:

[Link] TITLE PAGE NO

1 ABSTRACT 3

2 HYPOTHESIS 3

3 INTRODUCTION 3

4 BODY 4–8

5 CONCLUSION 8

6 BIBILOGRAPHY 9
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ABSTRACT

The aim of the research paper is to elucidate firstly the rise of Bhartiya Janta Party in terms of
functioning, power and being a political leader from the year 1990 and post 2014 and also NDA
from which a colliation leader was formed which changed the outlook of the Country INDIA and
made a better then it was from pre years. And how did BJP’s political dominance took place by
what factors?

HYPOTHESIS

The research paper assumes that how did the BJP power came be existence and how did it
defeated the other parties and congress who had a long term power under the Leadership of
many political leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, and many
more who helped India achieve independence when it was much needed. And of the same will be
further discussed in the Research Paper.
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INTRODUCTION

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

How Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) did came into power?

After coming into power what are changes that BJP brought that was recommended by the
citizens?

What was the functioning difference of NDA in 1900’s vs. post 2014 as a colliation party?

LITERATURE REVIEW

1. Pratul Sharma, ‘Under Shah, BJP an unstoppable juggernaut’, The Week, 7 October 2017

2. Pradeep Chhibber and Rahul Verma are with Lokniti-CSDS, and the Travers Department of
Political Science, University of California, Berkeley, U.S.

A more careful look at the data shows the remarkable nature of the BJP’s victory. In the 2014
Lok Sabha elections, the BJP contested only 428 seats. The party won more than 50 per cent
votes in 137 seats, and in another 132 seats it won more than 40 per cent votes. This is very
unusual and unexpected given India’s recent electoral history. The data presented in table 1
indicates how big the BJP’s victory was. 1

3. Gyan Varma, ‘BJP 2.0: A mass-based political party’, Mint, 2 December, 2014

Political analysts believe that with the rapid expansion of the BJP in the country, the control of
the RSS over the party will increase. “It is like the BJP is trying to become like the Congress
party. The cadre has always been there and it is mainly of the RSS. With this kind of expansion,
more control will be of RSS. Huge membership will also lead to factionalism in the party," said
P.K. Datta, a Delhi-based political analyst.2

4. Milan Vaishnav, ‘Modi’s victory and the BJP’s future’, Foreign Affairs, 15 March 2017.

1
Pradeep Chhibber and Rahul Verma are with Lokniti-CSDS, and the Travers Department of Political Science,
University of California, Berkeley, U.S.
2
Gyan Varma, ‘BJP 2.0: A mass-based political party’, Mint, 2 December, 2014
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There are victories, and then there are victories. Last weekend’s electoral triumph by the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the pivotal north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh (UP) is of the
latter sort. In an outcome that shocked analysts, political rivals, and even some on the winning
side, an alliance led by BJP Prime Minister Narendra Modi won 325 out of 403 seats on offer in
the state assembly, a humiliating defeat for opposition forces. In the four other states that also
went to polls, the BJP is set to form governments in as many as three.3

5. Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, ‘Three years of Narendra Modi govt: Role of BJP, rise of Amit
Shah and the battle ahead’, Firstpost, 19 May 2017.
In the wake of the Bharatiya Janata Party's electoral sweep of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, a
smart headline writer termed it as Bharatiya Juggernaut Party. If he was in the party where
creating alliterations is a favored mental exercise, the wordsmith would have received a fair
share of kudos. After all, the switched word means something that is "a massive inexorable force
that seems to crush everything in its way". In the context in which it was made, the alteration
couldn't have been after.4
BODY
The rise of the BJP to political dominance is the result of multiple factors that are external and
internal to the party. The decay and decline of the once-dominant Congress and regional parties
and the failure of the non-Congress non-BJP parties to forge stable governments are the external
ones. BJP’s innovative political strategy to adapt itself to the changing times and the popularity
of Narendra Modi are the internal ones. Therefore, the durability of the BJP’s dominance
depends on how these factors take further shape. Will the BJP accommodate the rising
aspirations of backward social groups for social justice and to have their due place in the
leadership echelons of the party and also not upset the delicate balance between the imperatives
of social welfare and economic growth? Will the non-BJP parties cease to be family fiefdoms of
autocratic leaders and a network of power-hungry and greedy political entrepreneurs and emerge
as a credible alternative to the BJP?5

3
Milan Vaishnav, ‘Modi’s victory and the BJP’s future’, Foreign Affairs, 15 March 2017.
4
Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, ‘Three years of Narendra Modi govt: Role of BJP, rise of Amit Shah and the battle
ahead’, Firstpost, 19 May 2017.
5
Suri, K C (2019): “Social Change and the Changing Indian Voter: Consolidation of the BJP in India’s 2019 Lok
Sabha Election,” Studies in Indian Politics, Vol 7, No 2, December, pp 234-46.
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A glance at the results of the 2019 Lok Sabha election gives us a sense of the breadth and depth
of the BJP. From about 7.4% popular vote in 1984, the first national general election the party
contested, the BJP’s vote share increased to 37.36% in the 2019 election. The BJP-led National
Democratic Alliance (NDA) polled 44.84% vote. In these years, the BJP has extended its
geographical spread as well. In 2019, the party contested in all states and union territories, either
on its own or with its allies. Of the 34 states and union territories in which it fielded candidates,
the party polled half or more than half of the votes in 14 states and union territories. The number
goes up to 17 for the NDA. It polled between one third and half of the total votes in another nine
states and union territories. The number goes up to 11 for the NDA. But more significantly, the
BJP polled 46.14% of the popular vote if we look at the vote per seat it contested. The number of
seats the party won with more than 50% of the popular vote has increased over the years, from
35 in 1996 to 224 in 2019. The 2019 National Election Study shows that of the people who have
reported that they identify with a political party, 41% said that they like the BJP. This marks a
huge increase from 25% in 1999 (NES 2019). The party claims a membership of 11 crore, the
largest for any party in the political history of the world. 6

The Decline of Congress Dominance and the Rise of the BJP

There are four causes for the emergence of the BJP as a dominant party. The first is the decay
and decline of the Congress party and many of the regional parties. We all know that it was not
the Congress dominance but its decline that became critical to shaping the party system in India.
But why did the Congress decline so soon after independence? Was it because the Congress
began to decay as it transformed itself from a movement party to a ruling party, as it happened in
many postcolonial nations? In retrospection, the Congress system appears to be a problematic
construct, both theoretically and empirically. Even in its heydays of the 1950s, the Congress was
deficient in the criteria laid down by Kothari: a party of consensus that possessed the
characteristics of ideological flexibility, accommodating opposition, and democratic
functioning.

 6
Shastri, Sandeep (2019): “The Modi Factor in the 2019 Lok Sabha Election: How Crucial Was It to the
BJP Victory?” Studies in Indian Politics, Vol 7, No 2, December, pp 206-18.
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The second reason for the BJP’s rise to dominance is the failure of the attempts of the non-
Congress non-BJP parties to forge stable governments. The decline of Congress dominance in
the 1960s and 1970s opened up many possibilities. For a short while after the Emergency, the
Janta Party appeared to be a solid alternative giving rise to speculation of the possibility of a
two-party system taking shape. But the party was shattered soon by the internecine quarrels of its
ambitious leaders. Again, after a decade, the formation of the National Front government led by
the Janta Dal in 1989 kindled hopes of forging a formidable third front, consisting of parties that
professed secularism and social justice. They have shown how parties can be reduced to personal
fiefs and political power can be passed on to family members like private property. The failure of
the non-BJP parties to offer an effective alternative to the Congress made people slowly turn
towards the BJP. 7

The third reason for BJP’s dominance is its innovative political strategy and ability to adapt itself
to the changing times and the changing Indian voter. It could sense the political vacuum in the
wake of Congress decay and the disintegration of the third front. But ‘mandalisation’ of politics
and the emergence of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Samajwadi Party (SP), and Rashtriya
Janta Dal (RJD) as principal contenders for power in UP and Bihar made the BJP leadership to
recognize that in order to come to power, the party has to secure the support of the members of
the numerically large lower strata of the Hindu social order, namely the Other Backward Classes
(OBCs), Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs).

In 2014 and 2019, we see a massive surge in the percentage of people from these social groups
voting for the BJP— from 19% in 1996 to 44% in 2019 among the OBCs, from 14% to 34%
among the SCs; and from 21% to 44% among the STs (Suri 2019: 236). The political strategy of
the BJP under Modi’s leadership synchronized well with the structural transformation of the
Indian society and the dynamics of democratic politics. The new social coalition of the upper
castes, OBCs, SCs and STs that the BJP could forge altered the internal composition of the BJP’s

 7
NES (2019): National Election Study, a nation-wide post-poll survey conducted by the Lokniti-CSDS,
Delhi.
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electoral support and, hence, the BJP’s social character. This massive change in its support base
pushed the party to the Centre stage.

Some commentators wrongly attribute BJP’s overwhelming success in 2014 and 2019 to Modi’s
personality, calling him a polarizing figure; polarizing people on the basis of religious identities.
Certainly, Hindutva was the foundation for the BJP’s success despite its ideological moderation
over the years. It remains crucial to Modi’s political strategy. But we know that Modi was not
the first leader to make it a political issue. Political Hindutva has been around quite for some
time, since the 1980s. Polarisation of voters did not happen in 2014. It is not as if Muslims were
voting for the BJP before Modi and now under Modi they had moved away from the BJP. The
fact is only 2% Muslims voted for the BJP in 1996.

How durable is BJP’s Dominance?

Institutionalization of greed to amass political power and material wealth through family control
of the party, autocratic leadership, and political corruption have come to occupy a central place
in India’s political practice over the past few decades. These afflictions that began with the
Congress party gradually spread to most of the regional parties. For the BJP under Modi’s
leadership, these afflictions have become the focal point of political attack against other parties,
eliciting a positive response from people. Insofar as these parties are run as family fiefdoms by
autocratic leaders continue as Centre’s of corruption by unscrupulous political entrepreneurs and
remain nests of intrigue by cronies, they cannot hope to emerge as a credible alternative to the
BJP. So far, most of these parties have not gone through the leadership turnover test in which
leadership succession takes place in a democratic manner according to the procedure laid down
in the party constitution. Hardly have they chosen any person other than the founder or founder’s
close family member to head the party.

CONCLUSION
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Based on the BJP’s performance in assembly elections and the current political situation, the
party may lose some ground across Delhi, Gujarat, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka,
Maharashtra, Bihar and Jharkhand. The party swept these states in 2014.

To be sure, assembly elections have seen some unique alliances including in Bihar and
Karnataka that may not be repeated next year, while state polls don’t always point to voting
patterns in the general elections8

Finally, a word on the desirability of dominance and dominant party system. The term dominant
party, although often used, is not well-defined. Some argued that a system of one-party
dominance should be considered a variant of democracy, instead of treating it as inimical to
democracy. However, the experience with dominant party systems is not all that encouraging.
Democracy depends on the alternation of power between parties and the hope for the losing party
to win next election by gathering sufficient popular support. While a desire to rule is inherent to
all political parties and leaders, a will to dominate others can become expansive. If pushed to
extremes, it can result in a desire to relegate other parties to the status of permanent opposition or

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a desire to revive the anachronistic dominant party system in which a ruling party claims to
represent the will of the nation.

We should not conflate electoral dominance of a party with the establishment of a dominant
party system or a system of one-party dominance. Congress, like many other parties that led
freedom struggles in various countries, was caught in this trap for some time and suffered from
its negative consequences. Unlike the early years of Congress dominance when the opposition
was in its incipient stage, the BJP today has to live with the reality of high party competition and
multiple formats of party competition at the state level.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 NES (2019): National Election Study, a nation-wide post-poll survey conducted by the Lokniti-
CSDS, Delhi.
 Shastri, Sandeep (2019): “The Modi Factor in the 2019 Lok Sabha Election: How Crucial Was It
to the BJP Victory?” Studies in Indian Politics, Vol 7, No 2, December, pp 206-18.
 Suri, K C (2019): “Social Change and the Changing Indian Voter: Consolidation of the BJP in
India’s 2019 Lok Sabha Election,” Studies in Indian Politics, Vol 7, No 2, December, pp 234-46.
 [Link]
 [Link]