The BJP celebrated its Foundation Day on Sunday, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying that people across India are seeing the good governance agenda of the ruling Party, which is also reflected in the historic mandates it received in the years gone by.
“Greetings to all BJP karyakartas on the Party’s Sthapana Diwas. We recall all those who devoted themselves to strengthening our party over the last several decades,” Modi said in a series of social media posts.
“This important day makes us reiterate our unparalleled commitment to work towards India’s progress and realise the dream of a Viksit Bharat.
“The people of India are seeing the good governance agenda of our Party, which is also reflected in the historic mandates we’ve received in the years gone by, be it in the Lok Sabha elections, Assembly elections across different states and various local body polls across the nation,” the Prime Minister said.
Modi said he is proud of the manner in which BJP karyakartas are working round-the-clock, in every part of the nation and serving the poor, downtrodden as well as marginalised.
The BJP was founded in 1980 by leaders of the erstwhile Bharatiya Jana Sangh, a party which had merged with other opposition parties to form the Janata Party to take on the Congress in the post-Emergency 1977 polls. The BJP won only two Lok Sabha seats in the first national election it fought in 1984.
However, it rose rapidly later under the leadership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani, coming to power in the 90s as the head of a coalition, before Modi led the party to its maiden majority in 2014. The party has been in power at the Centre since then.
Addressing an event organised at the BJP headquarters to mark the party’s 46th foundation day, BJP chief JP Nadda revisited the party’s political journey that began with the Bharatiya Jana
Sangh in 1951.
Nadda said it has become the world’s biggest political party and is in power in many states today because it never deviated from its ideological foundation, unlike the Congress which suffered a decline due to its “ideological dilution” over the years.
“Today, we have 240 members in the Lok Sabha, more than 98 in Rajya Sabha and more than 1,600 MLAs across the country. We have just concluded our membership drive and the number of BJP members has crossed 13.5 crore. We have more than 10 lakh active Party workers in the country,” Nadda said. He said the BJP is the only political Party that has witnessed a “scientific growth”.
Nadda said the BJP has always kept the nation first and made efforts to promote India’s traditions, culture and history, and pointed out that a “magnificent” Ram temple was constructed in Ayodhya during the party’s rule.
He said in the Shah Bano case,
the Congress under the then prime
minister Rajiv Gandhi had succumbed to
appeasement politics by “bowing”
to pressure from a section of the
Muslim community.
“Despite the Supreme Court calling for the emancipation of Muslim women, no one had the courage to take a decisive action,” he said, adding that BJP under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi abolished Triple Talaq and liberated Muslim women.
The BJP chief said the Modi government also gave citizenship rights to those who came to India after facing “religious persecution” in Pakistan.
“We said we will come out of the colonial mindset. Rajpath has now become Kartavya Path. A statue of Subhas Chandra Bose was also installed (near the India Gate),” he added.
On the just-passed Waqf Bill, Nadda said the Centre does not want to control Waqf Boards but ensure that they operate within the bounds of law so that their assets are used in promotion of education, healthcare and employment for the Muslim community.
Nadda, who is also the Union Health Minister, said governments in Turkey and many other Muslim countries have taken the Waqf properties under their control.
