Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was formed in Dec 1980 by Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani. The current president of the party is Rajnath Singh. Other important leaders of the party are 2014 prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, former premier Vajpayee and Advani.

The BJP has its roots in the Bhartiya Jana Sangh (BJS), the political wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a Hindu nationalist organisation formed in 1943. The BJS has served as a training arena for a number of current senior leaders of the party such as Vajpayee and Advani.

The party subscribes to the philosophy of what it calls integral humanism. It also commits itself to nationalist principles and professes a deep connection with India’s cultural roots.

Since its inception, the BJP, which has had a hardline posture, has had to tone down its rhetoric and approach on various issues so as not to appear thoroughly antagonistic towards minorities, particularly Indian Muslims. It is also said that the party’s posture was of a hardline nature mainly in order to appease other parties to convince them to form political alliances with the BJP.

The BJP’s previous governments in the centre and in Gujarat have seen two of the biggest communal riots of post-Partition era. One of these riots occurred in the wake of the destruction of the Babri mosque in 1992. A second riot occurred after the Godhra incident in Gujarat in 2002. Many thousands of people were killed and displaced in these riots and there was large-scale destruction in affected regions.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, like its fellow contending parties, the BJP is campaigning on issues that are currently of immense interest to the Indian public, such as corruption, the economy as well as sexual harassment which is seen to be on the rise in the world’s biggest democracy.

In its recently-released election manifesto, the BJP plans to revise the national nuclear policy, with the stated objective of making the existing policy “more relevant” to India’s present-day challenges. Modernisation of the armed forces and strengthening of the country’s borders are other features of BJP’s defence policies. Their manifesto also states that the party would firmly deal with the issue of cross-border terrorism

The party also aims at reforming the country’s economy which is mired with issues relating to ever-increasing inflation as well as corruption scandals tainting India’s image in markets the world over. In order to jumpstart sluggish economic growth and counter inflation, the BJP plans on welcoming direct foreign investment by all companies with some exceptions. The aim that the party is looking at with these measures is to create jobs for ordinary Indians.

The party has also proposed to simplify the country’s tax regime, review labour laws, improve infrastructure such as the construction of high-speed railways and building low-cost housing.

It has also reiterated in its manifesto the demand for the Ram temple in Ayodhya on the site where the Babri mosque stood before demolition which led to countrywide riots. Inclusion of this demand in the BJP manifesto has been termed as “culturally important” by senior party leader Murli Manohar Joshi who emphasised that the demand should not be viewed as part of a Hindu nationalist agenda.

The BJP has also vowed to end the slaughter of cows, which are considered sacred by the Hindus, and also repeal Article 370 of the Constitution that grants special autonomous rights to Jammu and Kashmir.

The party moreover intends to draft a uniform civil code for all Indians, a controversial issue that has proved to be divisive along religious lines. At present, the Indian constitution allows citizens to be governed by their own religious laws, a clause that particularly benefits Christians and Muslims, the country’s major religious minorities.

— Research and text by Soonha Abro