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The emergence of BJP as a significant force in post-Emergency politics has been described below:

(i) After the fall of the Janata Party and its break-up, the supporters of erstwhile Jana Sangh formed the Bharatiya Janata Party in 1980.

(ii) The BJP adopted a broader political platform than that of the Jana Sangh to gain support from more sections of people. It embraced 'Gandhian Socialism' as its ideology. However, it could not get much success in the elections held in 1980 and 1984. It won only two seats in the Lok Sabha elections of 1984.

(iii) After 1986, the party began to emphasise the Hindu nationalist elements in its ideology. The party pursued the politics of ‘Hindutva’ and adopted the strategy of mobilising the Hindus.

(iv) In 1985 subsequent of Shah Bano case and the orders of the Supreme Court, the government passed the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights of Divorce) Act 1986 on the demands of some Muslim leaders. The BJP criticised the action of the government as an unnecessary concession and ‘appeasement’ of the minority community. At the same time, Ayodhya issue was made by the BJP as its major electoral and political plank. The BJP, in order to generate public support, took out the Rathyatra from Somnath in Gujarat to Ayodhya in UP.

(v) As a result of above events, the BJP was able to consolidate its position in the elections of 1989 when the party won 85 seats in the Lok Sabha. The party won 121 seats in 1991 and 160 seats in 1996 elections. It was the largest party in 1996 elections.

(vi) With the formation of National Democratic Alliance, the BJP led government remained in power from March 1998 to October 1999 and again from October 1999 to May 2004. Atal Behari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister during this period.

 

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The main issues in Indian politics in the period after 1989 were as given below :

(i) Rise of Other Backward Classes as a political force.

(ii) Decision of the National Front government to implement the recommendations of the Mandal Commission and subsequent stir.

(iii) Rise of politics based on religious identity and debate about secularism and democracy.

(iv) Demolition of Babri Masjid.

(v) Anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat.

(vi) End of Congress dominance and beginning of era of coalition politics.

These issues led to different configurations of political parties as mentioned below :

(i) Political parties accepted the political and social claims of the backward castes. All political parties began to support reservation of seats for the backward classes in education and employment.

(ii) This gave rise to an era of coalition politics. Coalition governments were formed i.e., National Front in 1989, the United Front in 1996 and 1997, the NDA in 1997, BJP led coalition in 1998.NDA in 1999 and the UPA in 2004 and 2009.

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It is correct that in the new era of coalition politics, political parties are not aligning or realigning on the basis of ideology. Now emphasis is laid on pragmatic considerations rather than ideological positions and political alliances without ideological agreement are made. The focus of political parties has, therefore, shifted from ideological differences to power-sharing arrangements. The political equations have become unstable. For example in 1989, both Left and BJP supported the National Front Government because they wanted to keep the Congress out of power. In 1996, The Left continued to support the non-Congress government but this time the Congress supported it, as both the Congress and the Left wanted to keep the BJP out of power. Similarly most parties of the NDA (1999-2004) did not agree with the ‘Hindutva’ ideology of the BJP but they came together to form a government and remained in power for a full term.

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1)

The demolition of Babri Masjid

2)

Formation of the Janata Dal

3)

Assassination of Indira Gandhi

4)

Mandal Recommendations and Anti Reservation Stir

5)

The formation of NDA government

6)

Godhra incident and its fallout

7)

Formation of the UPA government

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A. Politics of Consensus	(i) Agreement on Economic policies
B. Caste based parties	(ii) RiseofOBCs
C. Personal Law and Gender Justice	(iii) Shah Bano case
D. Growing strength of Regional parties	(iv) Coalition government