Is RSS turning into BJP’s puppet?
The RSS, which will be celebrating the centenary of its foundation in 2025, has always been considered a respectable service-oriented socio-cultural organisation, But the recent developments, in which names of the senior-most RSS leadership figured, have come as an eye-opener for the organisation which had been tacitly supporting the BJP.
Published Date - 22 November 2022, 10:58 PM
Hyderabad: One cannot just dismiss the unfolding cash-for-defection episode, which was witnessed in Hyderabad two weeks ago, as an exemplar of the predatory politics being practised by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The slick-and-suave poaching attempt by the three BJP ‘agents’, now completely exposed, appears to have given way to an intense discussion among the upper echelons of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) on whether the organisation should be involved in the murky politics being practised by its protégé — the BJP.
The RSS, which will be celebrating the centenary of its foundation in 2025, has always been considered a respectable service-oriented socio-cultural organisation, not just by those who subscribe to its ideology, but also by those who remain unattached. But the recent developments, in which names of the senior-most RSS leadership figured, have come as an eye-opener for the organisation which had been tacitly supporting the BJP.
While the BJP’s attempts to topple the democratically elected TRS government by luring MLAs to cross over failed, the silent, but the strong impact of the ‘poachgate’ is now being felt in the RSS, which had always preferred to remain in the background.
The BJP ‘agents’ trio — Ramachandra Bharathi, Somayaji and Nanda Kumar — have unabashedly claimed that they were close associates of not only Prime Minister Narendra Modi and union Home Minister Amit Shah, but also RSS’ top leaders BL Santosh (who incidentally is now the BJP national secretary), Dattatreya Hosabale, the Sarkaryavah (or general secretary) of the RSS and others.
In fact, the SIT issuing a notice to BL Santosh under Section 41-A of the CrPC to appear before it in the ‘poachgate’ investigation has sent shockwaves among the RSS and BJP leadership. The leader, who is reverentially addressed as ‘Santoshji’, has been a full-time pracharak of the RSS before he was ‘loaned’ to the BJP as its national general secretary.
He is known to be the pointsman of Narendra Modi and is entrusted with the job of keeping a watch on the happenings in the BJP and ensuring the party’s adherence to its larger ideological agenda and vision.
Sansothji commands so much respect in the BJP and RSS circles that he is now considered as occupying the fourth position in the BJP after Narendra Modi, Amit Shah and JP Nadda.
But now the ‘poachgate’ has changed everything. A section of RSS leaders, it is said, have been dissatisfied with the way the Modi-Shah duo was bulldozing their way through. A sudden realisation among a section of RSS leaders is that the RSS which was the guiding light to the BJP had now become a follower of the BJP. Rather than being in the role of a big brother often guiding or correcting the political path whenever the BJP went astray, the RSS was now reduced to the role of supporting the acts of the BJP leadership.
The RSS has always been sending very subtle messages to the BJP on burning issues. Very recently, when the BJP leaders were vocal about the Gyanvapi mosque issue, the RSS Sar Sanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat assertively questioned the need to “look for a Shivling in every mosque”. That was the time when Telangana BJP chief Bandi Sanjay went overboard and threatened to dig up every mosque to check for Shivling.
Such is the power of the RSS chief that the BJP dropped the Gyanvapi demand like a hot potato from the next day. If this incident spoke of the sincerity of the RSS and its grip on the BJP policies, the ‘poachgate’ is being seen as an indicator of how the Modi-Shah duo has been enjoying inexhaustible levels of power so much so that they are dragging the RSS into the cesspool of dirtiest politics.
The debatable question among the top-rung leaders is whether the RSS is guiding the BJP or vice versa as narrated in the ‘poachgate’ scandal by the three BJP ‘agents’. The arrested ‘agents’ detailed how under the guidance of the RSS leader, they have toppled governments in Karnataka, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh and similar coups were being planned in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Delhi.
This led to arguments about whether the Modi-Shah duo has become more powerful than the RSS and whether the guiding organisation, which was known for its commitment to society, has been degraded among the people. The general feeling among the leaders was that the RSS, which used to command respect, is now being seen as an appendage to the BJP.
Is the RSS losing its character by supporting the political machinations of the Modi-Shah duo? Is the 97-year-old much-respected organisation turning into a puppet organistaion is the question that is engaging the RSS think tank now.