We all hear out quite a popular rhetoric these days about nationalism, Hindutva, RSS, mandir masjid, Modi's popularity, Rahul Gandhi etc.
These all terms are quite popular in recent times which I assume every kid in India is aware of as it is also because of TV media which has gone sick these days. They make sure everyone knows these things. But did you wander from where BJP got it's rise. All the credit shouldn't go to Narendra Modi, we shall analyze in this blog about it.
Causes of Rise of BJP?
Image credits: hindustantimes.com
One of the foremost reason is definitely the decline of Congress, it is clearly evident how the congress has lost its vote share and the connect among the public. There used to be days when you go around in any village, town, city of India and people used to say "Hum toh Indira Gandhi ko vote daalenge(We will vote for Indira Gandhi, no matter what)". Then the demise of Indira Gandhi led to full majority seats of Rajiv Gandhi. From there onwards the congress is continuously declining, it's not from 2014 onwards only.
Second is demise of left, the left has completely wiped out except from Kerala of course the 1991 reforms are a big reason as larger public accepted that liberalization is the way forward which paved the way for Rightist parties to come at front.
Biggest reason is organizational strength of BJP till grass roots level, of course RSS included. They have very good network and connect with all sections of people in the society and many reputed people of the society are their members which help them catch votes.
One thing that clicked the masses is the nationalistic rhetoric, they got the way to influence people in the name of Nationalism. Whether it's using Pakistan, Kashmir (Article 370) and the majority party religions that is the Hindu's.
One big reason is also Globalization, the narrative of good economic policies and liberalization, more trade with the world has worked well for the BJP. The NRI's provide huge support for the BJP Policies. Also the Globalization has led to rise of ethnicity and identity crisis, public around the world is getting conscious about their religion, caste, color, gender and country.
Also the rising fear of Islamic fundamentalism (We can see example of Afghanistan, Turkey etc.)
If we look at stats from the death of Shri. Indira Gandhi , then BJP had 2 seats and 7.4 % vote share only. The organization was weak and not a popular name among the masses.
1989 BJP got 120 seats and a vote share of 11.56% (After our PM Shri, Rajiv Gandhi ji died).
1991, when coalition government fell, BJP got 120 seats and a vote share of 20.95%. (increased by huge margin)
1996, BJP got 161 seats and a vote share of 20.3% (Bit of decrease from past)
1998, BJP got 182 seats and vote share of 25% (best performance so far)
1999, they got 183 seats and vote share fell to 23.07%
2004, they got 188 seats and vote share almost same 22.16%.
2009, BJP got 116 seats and vote share fell to 18.8% (decrease in the vote share)
2004, they got 282 seats and vote increased strongly to 31.5%.
2019, they got 303 seats and a vote share of 37%. (So far the most number and as congress used to get till 1980s)
Looking at the Lok Sabha seat share of congress, we see it was the only prime party with almost no competition but today it has shifted to BJP.
Then the Lok Sabha seats and votes of Congress during Indira - Rajiv Gandhi is
Lok Sabha seats and votes of Congress during Sonia- Rahul is
Source- Election commission of India
It's quite clear the congress party vote share had declined and the coalition government was the only solution at that time, that is why we had frequent elections as well.
stay tuned for more.
(Correct us if there is error in data in comment below, we chose the best of sources)
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