Mr Singh, a low profile leader from the key state of Uttar Pradesh, said his main aims would be to expand the party's support and clean up its image.

Half a dozen of the right-wing Hindu nationalist party's MPs were recently suspended from parliament for allegedly accepting cash for questions.

"Corruption, misconduct and indiscipline are factors on which the BJP will not compromise on any grounds," he told party workers at BJP headquarters in Delhi.

Mr Singh is the BJP's third president in 15 months. Mr Advani, 77, lasted little more than a year in the job after Venkaiah Naidu stepped down in October 2004 for personal reasons.

Mr Advani, who remains opposition leader in parliament, fell out with hardliners in June when he described Pakistan's founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah as secular.

A former federal agriculture minister, Rajnath Singh shot into the limelight in the early 1990s as the Uttar Pradesh education minister when he came down hard on cheating in examinations.

But he does not have a national profile, and some analysts believe he will find it difficult to run a party with a young generation of leaders competing for primacy.

The current changing of the guard is seen as marking the end of an era for the BJP, which suffered a shock general election defeat at the hands of Congress in 2004.

As well as coping with the departure of Mr Advani it must also face up to a future without the active participation of another party founder, Atal Behari Vajpayee, who said last week he was quitting politics.

Observers say the party now faces a difficult choice between maintaining its Hindu nationalist ideology and striving to become modern and progressive.

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