Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya: Deendayal Upadhyaya had the Sangh in his heart, with a resolve to work for the welfare of the downtrodden. Jansangh took shape from his thinking. 

Antyodaya Diwas 2024: Deendayal Upadhyaya, born on 25 September 1916 in a village named Nagla Chandrabhan in the holy Brajbhoomi Mathura of Uttar Pradesh, left an indelible mark on Indian politics. In his childhood, an astrologer saw his horoscope and predicted that in the future this child would become a great scholar and thinker, and would work as a great politician and servant. The astrologer had also predicted that this child would not marry. 

Later in Indian politics, Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay established such an ideology with the help of which not only BJP came to power, but many schemes were also implemented for the welfare of the last person of the society. 

Deendayal

Upadhyaya was very good at studies. He also earned many gold medals and scholarships. Time passed and Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya stepped towards politics. During his service to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in Agra, he was introduced to Nanaji Deshmukh and Bhau Judge. At the same time, his sister fell ill and reached Agra for treatment. Unfortunately, his sister passed away. Due to this, Deendayal Upadhyaya could not appear for the MA examination, his scholarship also ended. But, on the insistence of his aunt, he appeared for a government competitive examination and secured the first position. There is a special incident related to this examination.

Discussion of the exam

In this exam, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya was wearing a dhoti kurta and a cap. The other candidates were wearing modern clothes. His classmates started calling Deen Dayal Upadhyaya 'Panditji' as a joke. Later, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya became popular as 'Panditji' for his millions of fans and followers.

Deendayal Upadhyaya was the leader of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh from 1953 to 1968. Apart from being a serious philosopher and a profound thinker, he was a dedicated organizer and leader who established the highest standards of personal purity and dignity in public life. Since the inception of

the Bharatiya Janata Party, he has been its ideological guide and source of moral inspiration.

In 1950, Dr. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee resigned from the cabinet of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and sought Golwalkar's help in providing idealistic and patriotic youth to create an alternative political platform in the country. Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya played a very important role in this political development.

He successfully organized a political conference in Uttar Pradesh on 21 September 1951. At this conference, the state unit of a new political party, Bharatiya Jana Sangh, was established in the country. A month later, on 21 October 1951, Dr. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee presided over the first All India Conference of Bharatiya Jana Sangh.

Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya had a unique and amazing skill of organization. With the passage of time, that historic day also came in the development journey of Bharatiya Jana Sangh, when in the year 1968, this great leader was honoured with the post of the party's president. To discharge his responsibility and to carry the message of patriotism of Jana Sangh, Deen Dayal travelled to South India. The seed of ideology that Deen Dayal Upadhyaya had sown was later seen in the Bharatiya Janata Party as well. 

On 11 February 1968, Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya died under mysterious circumstances in a train near the railway station. Even after the death of Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya, his ideology is seen in every government of BJP.

Antyodaya Kalyan

BJP's national spokesperson Prem Shukla says that Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay established his ideology in Indian politics right in front of Congress. One ideology was of Gandhiji, whose ideology was abandoned during his lifetime itself. Gandhiji talked about Swadeshi, Gram Swaraj, Small Scale Industry. Jawaharlal Nehru abandoned all three.

He further said, "BJP has enriched the ideology of Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya in the last five decades. In Atal Bihari Vajpayee's government, villages were connected to cities through roads. Work was done to feed every person. PM Narendra Modi did many things for Antyodaya welfare. Every poor person was given a house, LPG, toilet, electricity, tap water in every house.

He said that we struggled for decades by staying out of power, when we came to power, we imbibed the principles of Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya and took them to the last person. The Congress party made Gandhi's philosophy a means to attain power, not to serve. We have kept Deendayal Upadhyaya's ideology of 'India First' at the center of our foreign policy.