Emergence of BJP

Following the fall of the Janata Party administration in 1980, the Bharatiya Janata 
Party (BJP) became a significant political force in India. Its origins can be discovered in the 
Bharatiya Jana Sangh, an older political group that Shyama Prasad Mukherjee founded in 1951. 
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) had an ideological effect on the Jana Sangh, which 
supported cultural nationalism. In 1977, a number of opposition groups banded together to 
establish the Janata Party, which briefly held national power following the Indian Emergency. 
But ideological disagreements, especially over the RSS’s position, caused the Janata Party to 
disintegrate. The Bharatiya Janata Party was founded in April 1980 by former Jana Sangh leaders 
including Lal Krishna Advani and Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The BJP first concentrated on the ideas 
of “Gandhian socialism,” but it eventually began to place more of an emphasis on Hindu identity 
politics and cultural nationalism. The party grew quickly in the late 1980s and early 1990s, 
especially during the Ram Janmabhoomi agitation. The BJP became one of India’s two main 
political parties as a result of this. The party eventually established national and state 
governments and rose to prominence in Indian politics