RSS unhappy over BJP bickering

The current identity crisis faced by the BJP post-Lok Sabha elections is the result of steady erosion of the core values fostered by the RSS. This is the consensus among the top RSS leaders here. Pradip Kumar Maitra reports.

The current identity crisis faced by the BJP post-Lok Sabha elections is the result of steady erosion of the core values fostered by the RSS. This is the consensus among the top RSS leaders here.

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The top RSS leadership is anguished by the ongoing bickering among the senior BJP leaders at a time when the party needed to do some serious “soul-searching” and “reinventing” itself to regain the public confidence.

The feeling of hurt and betrayal weighing down the RSS leadership became public when M.G. Vaidya, one of the seniormost RSS leaders, chose to give the BJP a piece of his mind, not through its traditional close-door consultations, but through the media.

Earlier this week, Vidya wrote a sarcastic article in Tarun Bharat, a RSSS mouthpiece, taunting those in the BJP who want the party to give up its Hindutva ideology to attract minority votes. He dared the BJP part ways with the Hidutva ideology and face the consequence.

He felt the BJP is no more a cadre-based party with leaders committed to the organisation’s goals. When leaders compete with each other for power, the situation that BJP finds itself in today becomes inevitable. He said this tendency was affecting the party at the state level too, and cited the current power struggle between the BJP leaders K.C. Khanduri and B.S. Koshiyari in Uttarakhand.

“This is also because those without the RSS background, who are now in the BJP, have brought in their culture that worships power,” he added.

Most RSS functionaries here endorse Vaidya’s views. “You don’t give up your principles and commitment just because you have lost one election and an opportunity to come to power,” said one of them.