| Title |
BHARATIYA JAN SANGH |
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Date-wise Events |
October 21, 1951:
This political party was launched on this day. |
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Description |
- The Bharatiya Jana Sangh, commonly known as the Jan
Sangh, was an Indian nationalist political party that
existed from 1951 to 1977.
- It was started by Shyama Prasad Mookerjee on 21 October
1951 in Delhi as a political arm of the Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh and to be a "nationalistic alternative" to
the Indian National Congress.
- The symbol of the party in Indian elections was an oil
lamp with its ideology centred on Hindutva.
- In the 1952 general elections to the Parliament of
India, Bharatiya Jana Sangh won just three seats, Mookerjee
being one of the winning candidates.
- Its strongest constituencies were in Rajasthan, Gujarat,
Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
- It strongly supported a stringent policy against
Pakistan and China, and were averse to the USSR and
communism.
- Many of its leaders also inaugurated the drive to ban
cow slaughter nationwide in the early 1960s.
- Chronological list of presidents:
- Shyama Prasad Mookerjee (1951–52)
- Mauli Chandra Sharma (1954)
- Prem Nath Dogra (1955)
- Acharya D.P. Ghosh (1956–59)
- Pitambar Das (1960)
- Avasarala Rama Rao (1961)
- Acharya D.P. Ghosh (1962)
- Raghu Vira (1963)
- Acharya D.P. Ghosh (1964)
- Bachhraj Vyas (1965)
- Balraj Madhok (1966)
- Deen Dayal Upadhyaya (1967–68)
- Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1968–72)
- Lal Krishna Advani (1973–77)
- In 1977, after the emergency, it merged with several
other left, centre and right parties opposed to rule of the
Indian National Congress and formed the Janata Party.
- After the Janata Party split in 1980, it was re-formed
as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in
1980, which is one of India's largest political parties
today and presently in power at the centre and a number of
States (as of Oct, 2015), with Narendra Modi being India's
Prime Minister.
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