At the culmination of an election in which the BJP was practically hand-held by its ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the party President Rajnath Singh held a second meeting with the RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat on Sunday. The BJP President had met Bhagwat on Saturday as well along with the party’s Prime Ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi.
The meetings were described as part of the discussions on post-election strategy and possible government formation. Although the BJP claims it is confident of getting a majority with its existing flock of 25 small and big parties, the RSS is unambiguous about what it expects of its political progeny, in case it falls short of a majority. The Sangh’s principal objective is to establish a government that follows its ideological agenda. An alliance government formed after cobbling together ideologically disparate elements is not what the RSS would prefer.
Core issuesThe BJP has to be strong enough to protect its core ideological issues. The discussions between the BJP President and the RSS top brass, Mohan Bhagwat, Suresh Joshi and Suresh Soni, were said to have been centred around the possible dependence and desirability of reaching out to allies especially to parties such as the Trinamool Congress, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the AIADMK. An ally like Mamata Banerjee, for instance, can completely derail the RSS’s agenda with regard to the Bangladeshi migrants.
In fact, the selection of Narendra Modi as the BJP’s PM candidate itself was influenced partly by the fact that he is a
Other main considerations for Modi’s anointment as the first among the equals were, of course, his popularity among the cadre and the unique ability he has to consolidate the BJP’s core vote.
The Sangh is particularly chuffed with Modi’s hard stand on the Bangladeshi migrant issue, his distinction between Hindu “refugees” and Muslims “infiltrators,” cross-border terrorism and absolute refusal to apologise for the 2002 riots, wear a skull cap or show any gesture that may be construed as “appeasement.”
Having picked a strong leader, the RSS has, for the first time since 1977, engaged in a level of mobilisation that even the BJP finds surprising. “This kind of energy and enthusiasm was absent in the 2004 and 2009 elections,” said a BJP leader. “The BJP only campaigned. We are the ones who mobilised,” said an RSS worker in Uttar Pradesh. The RSS ran practically a parallel campaign along with the BJP with different pamphlets exhorting people to come out and vote. It appointed key office-bearers such as veteran Krishna Gopal to supervise election preparations in Uttar Pradesh.
V Satish and Dattatreya Hosabale oversaw elections in the southern States, and Saudan Singh looked after the eastern parts. In Uttar Pradesh, for example, every booth roughly had two RSS workers along with about 30 Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) and 10 BJP workers.
A handful of booths together comprised a sector where the Sangh was careful in considering caste profile of each area and appoint workers with the appropriate caste in different areas.
In Faizabad, UP, for instance, there were 104 OBC sectors — the worker who got in touch with an OBC voter was someone from the same community category. In constituencies such as Amethi and Varanasi, the RSS appointed PannaPrabharis, essentially an RSS worker for each page ( Panna in Hindi) of the electoral rolls.
Identifying votersThe Panna Prabhari’s task was to identify voters in the page assigned to him and undertake constant interaction, appeals to come out and vote and assist in getting to the polling booths if necessary. “In the South, a State like Kerala for instance, the BJP has a very weak organisation. It is the RSS which is managing the whole show,” said a BJP insider.
The concentrated efforts are not merely to install Narendra Modi as Prime Minister. What the RSS would like is a government which follows its line on Pakistan, cross-border terrorism, Bangladesh migrants and so on.
Although Modi’s strong policy may be a cause of concern, the Sangh places immense faith in his ideological purity. And they would not want churlish allies to dilute the faith.
The discussions between the RSS and the BJP brass on Sunday centred around how best to keep them at bay.