Togadia says he’ll leave VHP as his faction loses polls

NEWDELHI: In a setback to its bestknown leader Praveen Togadia, a vocal critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) on Saturday elected former Himachal Pradesh governor V S Kokje as its international president of the hardline organisation.

While Togadia’s associate and incumbent international president Raghava Reddy polled 60 votes, Kokje walked away with 131 votes in the first election ever to the post. An upset Togadia announced his departure from the VHP and said he will go on an indefinite hunger strike in Ahmedabad on Tuesday to press his demand for the passage of a law for the construction of a Ram Temple in Ayodhya.

The VHP, like the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is an affiliate of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Togadia has shared an uneasy relationship with Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah and sharply voiced his criticism in what many in the RSS saw as defiance of organisational discipline. The outcome of the election is a setback to Togadia and his followers and is also being viewed as a sign of the Sangh’s continued backing of Modi.

Soon after the election, the central board of trustees of the VHP approved the appointments of Alok Kumar as VHP’S working president, Ashok Rao Chowgule as working president (external), Milind Parande as secretary general, Vinayak Rao Deshpande as organizational general secretary, Champat Rai as a vice-president and Venkata Koteswara Rao as joint general secretary.

Saturday’s election that took place in Gurgaon was necessitated by members failing to reach consensus on who should head the VHP, which has been at the forefront of the Ayodhya Ram Temple movement and more recently headed a campaign against inter-faith marriages.