It was on April 4, 1980. The then President of Janata Party, the Late Chandrashekhar, Mohan Dharia and Late Madhu Limaye were repeatedly telling the Jan Sangh(constituent of Janata Party) leaders that their dual membership would not work and that they would have to end their membership with Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Foreign Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Lal Krishna Advani kept explaining that Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is our mother organisation. We have received values from them since childhood.
There is no membership in the Sangh; the Sangh is a cultural organisation that works for India’s culture, tradition, nationalism, and Sanatan Dharma.
Despite this, other constituent parties of the Janata Party did not agree. The truth was that after the Emergency, Jan Sangh was the first political party in India to erase its party name and election symbol to protect democracy. The Janata Party leaders, even Morarji Desai, the Prime Minister then, did not listen to Atal and Advani and remained silent. I still remember that Atal and Advani told the former Organisational Secretary Sunder Singh Bhandari to call an emergency meeting of the prominent leaders of all the provinces and national levels of the country on April 4, 1980.
Our senior leader of Madhya Pradesh and the then MP from Gwalior, Narayan Krishna Shejwalkar, also attended that meeting. I was in a newspaper and lived in the first office of Jan Sangh in the country, which was built in Gwalior. As a journalist, I also attended the meeting with the late Shejwalka. The meeting started. First, Advani presented all the issues arising from the Janata Party. He said that in the name of dual membership, other constituents of the Janata Party are talking about us not being ‘swayamsevaks’ of the Sangh and leaving the membership of the Sangh along with their programs. He said that Atal and I have given a lot of advice to the leaders of the Janata Party. I tried to explain and said that there is no membership in the Sangh; we have an ideological connection with the Sangh. But Janata Party leaders and other constituents did not understand this. Present there were Shri Jagannath Rao Joshi, Bhairo Singh Shekhawat, Sundar Singh Bhandari, Kedarnath Sahni, Dr Murli Manohar Joshi, Shanta Kumar, Vijay Kumar Malhotra, Kushabhau Thackeray, J.P. Mathur, Kailashpati Mishra, Uttam Rao Patil, Vishnukant Shastri, O. More than 125 leaders of the country, including Rajagopal, Yagyadutt Sharma, Madanlal Khurana, Ashwini Kumar, Keshubhai Patel, and Yadurappa, said together that we are first of all swayamsevaks and our connection with the Sangh cannot be lost even after death. For this, we may have to leave the Janata Party.
Finally, Atalbecame emotional after listening to everyone’s sentiments. In his speech, he said that we are volunteers of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and will always remain so but no longer join the Janata Party. All the leaders present clapped after listening to Atal and, in one voice, said that we had merged the Jan Sangh political party with the Janata Party, but even today, the karyakartas of Jan Sangh are in every part of the country due to the cooperation of Jan Sangh workers and the Sangh that the Janata Party got so many seats in the country after the end of the Emergency in 1977. In the meeting, a committee was formed under the chairmanship of Sunder Singh Bhandari, and this committee was entrusted with suggesting a new name for the party, creating a new election symbol, and making a new constitution.
On April 6, 1980, a meeting of prominent Jan Sangh leaders from across the country was held, and the new Bharatiya Janata Party was founded. The election symbol was declared as Lotus, and the work of making the party’s constitution began. The BJP’s first session was held in the Mahim area of Mumbai. All the senior leadership unanimously declared Atal Bihari Vajpayee, three-time president of Jan Sangh, as the national president in the presence of lakhs of karyakartas. Many resolutions were passed. Advani expressed his views on why the Jan Sangh separated from the constituents and why the Janata Party broke. The same evening, in his presidential speech, Atal said, “The darkness will end, the sun will come out and the lotus will bloom(Andhera Chatega, Suraj Nikalega aur Kamal Khilega.” In that first session of BJP, famous judge MC Chagla was also present. It was written on the banner behind the stage: leave the throne, and the public will come. On this occasion, Chhagla said that I was seeing in front of my eyes that the BJP was coming and that the country’s future prime minister would be Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Elections were held in the year 84. Indira was assassinated in the middle of the elections. BJP got only two seats in the country. One was Ashok Patel from Mehsana in Gujarat, and the other was Janga Reddy from Andhra Pradesh. Even Atal did not win from Gwalior in 1984. He lost to Madhavrao Scindia in the elections. There was disappointment in the country. Atal stood up and said we had lost the election, not the fight. We will spread Lotus across the country with double the strength. There were karykartas all over the country. The national and state leadership continued the work of awakening small and big karykartas and the people of India by undertaking an uninterrupted march across India. Gradually, the BJP’s numbers increased in every Lok Sabha election. In 1989, BJP got 85 seats; in 1991, it got 120 seats.
A situation arose when the BJP won 182 seats in the 1996 elections. Being the largest party, the then President Dr. Shankar Dayal Sharma called Atal for the oath of Prime Minister. Atal took the oath of Prime Minister, but that government lasted only 13 days. Then elections were held, and again, BJP got good seats with its allies, i.e. with the then NDA. Atal again became the Prime Minister for 13 months. The allies betrayed, and Atal’s Government fell by one vote. Before resigning, Atal said in his speech in the Parliament, ‘Governments will come and go, but we will not even touch the government formed through horse-trading’. However, in the 1990 Assembly elections, the BJP formed governments with the majority in Madhya Pradesh, Himachal, and Rajasthan. Congress was badly defeated in the elections of these states.
In the Lok Sabha elections held in 1999, the NDA Government was formed with the alliance of all the allies, and Atal became the Prime Minister for the third time in five years. Then, in 2004, the BJP was defeated in the Lok Sabha elections, and the UPA government was formed. After that, the Prime Minister of the UPA Government, who was less a politician and a bureaucrat, Dr Manmohan Singh. This government lasted for ten years. In these ten years, the UPA Government was drowned in scams. Crores of people across the country were disappointed with UPA.
But history takes a turn. Narendra Modi, who ran a brilliant government for 12 years in Gujarat, was made the then BJP President Rajnath Singh the coordinator of the Lok Sabha election campaign and a few days later, BJP made a party announcement to make him the future Prime Minister of the country. Narendra Modi, a new political era, was born in the country as soon as the name came. New hopes arose, and new rays of hope started appearing. The country had seen the indelible mark of Gujarat’s development. Narendra Modi won the trust of the entire country by making an uninterrupted visit to India, and after thirty years, a majority government was formed by one party (BJP). The total seats of the BJP were 282, and the NDA was 336. After that, the Prime Minister did not hold even for a day. His steps increased.
Meanwhile, Rajnath Singh became the country’s home minister, and the new president of BJP, Amit Shah, the general secretary of BJP and in charge of UP, became the national president of BJP. As soon as he took charge of the organisation, Amit Bhai created history by making BJP the largest political party in the world through his continuous stay and numerous works and programs. Including the BJP office in every district, 12 such tasks were assigned, which had to be done in every district of BJP.
While Prime Minister Narendra Modi hoisted the tricolour flag on the moon with the help of scientists, he soon brought BJP, i.e. NDA, to the peak of Everest in politics. Today, the flags of BJP and NDA fly high from East to West and North to South. India is a nation of dynasticism. Modi was free from dynastic politics and corruption and dedicated his government to the poor, women, farmers and youth. Today, while Modi is being recognised worldwide for his iron skills, he has shown neighbouring countries, such as China and Pakistan, that if you show us your eyes, we will no longer show them but remove them. Country’s villages have not only helped in the development of the poor but also determined so many dimensions of development. In 2019, BJP alone got 303 seats, and NDA got a total of 352 seats. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has not rested even for a day since May 26 2014 and has not celebrated any holiday, even when attending the funeral of his 100-year-old mother, after 3 hours, got involved in the national duty of Bharat Mata. From then till now, Modi has neither stopped nor tired nor stopped. Also, he celebrated Diwali in the last ten years among the soldiers who left their homes to protect Bharat Mata on the borders and assured the soldiers that they always salute the courage of the soldiers.
This is the first Lok Sabha election of 2024 where not only crores of people of the country but all the opposition are saying in hushed words that the BJP government will be formed for the third time and Modi will again become the Prime Minister for the third time. The eighth world surprise is that the Lok Sabha elections are moving towards being held, and the result will come on June 4, 2024. Still, the country has already publicly given its results before the elections. On its 45th anniversary, BJP will come again for the third time with a record majority, the Lotus will bloom, and Modi will come. The country is ready to seal its guarantee.
Modi did not waste even a moment in realising what was being said in the manifesto during the Jan Sangh era. Today, the world is acknowledging his resolution. In the last ten years, he has gone a long way towards becoming India’s and the world’s Man of the Era. Modi has shown confidence that after becoming Prime Minister for the third time in 2024, he will take India to the best position in the world in the next five years and till 2047, a Developed India. This thing has become so deeply ingrained in the minds and hearts of the countrymen that the country itself is saying, ‘This time again Modi government’ (Phir Se Ek Baar Modi Sarkar).
(The author is ex-MP & former Vice-President BJP)
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