RSS meet to review feedback over govt, shape 2019 strategy

NEW DELHI: The top leadership of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) will go into a fiveday huddle in April to draw up the specifics of the organisation’s role in the run-up to the 2019 general elections, a senior RSS functionary aware of the planned meeting said.

The meeting comes in the wake of feedback from RSS foot soldiers and affiliates that hints at “growing disappointment” with the Bjp-led government at the centre and in poll-bound states such as Rajasthan, MP and Chhattisgarh.

Although the RSS, the ideological fount of the BJP, asserts that it is not involved in electoral politics, it has decided to coordinate with the BJP and oversee poll preparations for the Lok Sabha elections as well as assembly elections in states where the BJP is in power, the person cited above said on condition of anonymity.

According to him, RSS brass led by its chief Mohan Bhagwat will meet in Pune from April 17 to 21 for the brainstorming.

It is not clear if the RSS will invite the BJP high command to the meeting.

“There are several reasons for which the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government seems to be losing support-- these are mostly related to the economy, job cuts and the recent bank scams.

The Sangh feels that there ought to be better communication between the party and the people, and these issues will be taken up at the Pune meeting,” the functionary said.

BJP spokespersons did not respond to queries about the impending RSS meeting in Pune.

Another concern in the RSS is the growing coalition of regional parties readying to take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who will again be the BJP’S face for the 2019 elections. Parties such as the Trinamool Congress (TMC), the Samajwadi Party (SP), the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) are in the process of forming a federal front to take on the BJP.

The Sangh doesn’t think highly of coalitions.

While the BJP has been euphoric about state electoral triumphs, taking to 21 the number of states where it is in power, the RSS is apprehensive about the party’s recent reverses in by-elections in states it is already governing.

Another RSS functionary, who also requested anonymity said the by-election results in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, the loss the party faced in Punjab, the dip in its numbers in Gujarat, the home state of Modi and BJP president Amit Shah, are being perceived as “warning signs”. The BJP lost all the Lok Sabha seats in the recently held by-polls in UP and Bihar; two seats in Rajasthan and two assembly seats in Madhya Pradesh.