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From HT Archives: In BJP, a political behemoth is born
The Janata Party has been formally split, creating the Bharatiya Janata Party, with Atal Behari Vajpayee as its first President. The new party will have a separate constitution, election symbol, and flag. Vajpayee announced Vijaya Raje Scindia and Ram Jethmalani as two of the three vice-presidents. The party will focus on rural development and fulfilling the aspirations of Jayaprakash Narayan. Vajpayee urged opposition parties to field single candidates against the Congress-I in assembly elections. The first task of the new party will be to mobilize the Indian people to meet the growing challenge of "dynastic dictatorship."
Formalising the parting of ways with the Janata Party, delegates attending the convention called by L. K. Advani today constituted a new party which they christened Bharatiya Janata Party and elected with one voice , Atal Behari Vajpayee as its first President.
The new party will have a separate constitution, separate flag and separate election symbol and would not lay claim either on the “haldhar” symbol of the Janata Party or its 7, Jantar Mantar Road headquarters, Vajpayee told a Press conference soon after the convention.
Sikandar Bakht, former Union Minister of Works and Housing, proposed Vajpayee’s name and Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, former Chief Minister of Rajasthan seconded the proposal. The delegates empowered Vajpayee to nominate the national executive and State committees.
At his Press conference, Vajpayee announced that Vijaya Raje Scindia, MP and Ram Jethmalani MP would be among the three vice-presidents. The third name was to be announced later.
L. K. Advani, MP, Sikandar Bakht and Murli Manohar Joshi will be the general secretaries of the party. A fourth general secretary will be named later. Two secretaries have also been appointed -- Suraj Bhan, MP and K. Krishnamoorthy.
Sunder Singh Bhandari will I be the treasurer of the new party.
Advani earlier announced that a three-member committee consisting of Shanti Bhushan. MP, Ram Jethmalani, MP and S. S. Bhandari, MP, would prepare a draft constitution, and hold talks with the Election Commission for finalising the election symbol of the new party.
Vajpayee said at the Press conference and also earlier during his presidential speech at the convocation, that enrolment of primary members and elections for the various levels would be undertaken with urgency and completed after the assembly elections. He would hold the reins of president, ship till a duly-elected chief took over from him. The first national convention of the new party, he declared, would be held soon thereafter and in any case within less than a year of the formation of the new party.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, he declared, re-affirmed, its faith in Indian nationalism, secularism based on respect for all religions (”sarva-dharma-samabhava”) and socialism based on the Gandhian principles of decentralisation of political and economic power. “We want to transform the politics of power into politics of principles, politics of convenience into politics of commitment and politics of cunning into the politics of character,” he said. “This”, he added, “was the only way of re-establishing the credibility of the political system and of political leaders themselves.”
Addressing the more than 4,300 delegates, Vajpayee said that the danger of authoritarianism was looming larger than ever over the Indian political scene, the extra constitutional centres of power were again gaining ascendancy, and officialdom had been paralysed with sycophancy being at a premium.
“We know that the task before us is arduous, the path is long, and it will require a super-human task to win back the confidence of the people once gain. We are entering a tunnel the other end of which is yet not visible. But it is both a challenge and an opportunity. Let us accept the challenge and transform it into a golden opportunity,” he said.
At his Press conference, Vajpayee emphasised that all the op- position parties should put up single candidates against the Congress-I in the Assembly elections. The criterion for this would be which candidates would have the maximum chances of winning.
While not specifying with which party the Bharatiya Janata Party would like to have electoral understanding. Vajpayee said that he wanted that the Congress-I candidates should be opposed only by combined Opposition candidates.
Asked what would be the first task of the new party, Vajpayee said it would be to mobilise the Indian people to meet the growing challenge of “dynastic dictatorship.”
His party would be rural development oriented, he told a questioner. It would seek to fulfil the aspirations of Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan.
He was particularly harsh on the Union Government’s decisions to declare almost the whole of Assam as disturbed area and said it was unfortunate that the politics of consensus was given up and the State handed over to the armed forces. He suggested that the cut-off point for detection of foreign nationals could be 1961 but counselled the Government to hold talks with the students and others in Assam in this connection It was wrong on the part of the Prime Minister, he said, to declare in Parliament that the Opposition leaders had agreed to 1971 as the cut-off year.
Earlier, Vijay Kumar Malhotra, who was the president of the Delhi Pradesh Janata Party, placed the report of the seven-member committee which met last night to discuss the name, flag and constitution of the new party.
He said that the maximum number of delegates had supported the name Bharatiya Janata Party. About the flag, it will be again the green and saffron in the ratio of 1:2, as in the Janata Party flag. but the two colour bands would be vertical in the new party’s flag in place of horizontal as in the Janata Party flag. The green band would be near the mast.
As for the symbol, four were being considered: burning torch within a circle, the Sun, a farmer milking the cow, and a kisan harvesting his crop.
Soon after Vajpayee’s speech, voluntary donations started pouring in, with one individual pledging ₹11,001 and a Bombay committee promising to raise ₹100,000.
Today’s session began with speeches by women delegates mainly such as Jayashree Banerjee, a former Madhya Pradesh Minister. Sushila Athwala, head of the women’s wing of the Janata Party in Pune and Begum Khurshid Kidwai, former Deputy Chairman of the Delhi Metropolitan Council.
