New Delhi: Results of the Lok Sabha elections have come as a “reality check for overconfident BJP karyakartas and many leaders,” and have revealed the “false ego” of Bharatiya Janata Party leaders that they alone understand “realpolitik”, while “RSS cousins were village bumpkin”, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leader Ratan Sharda has written in an article in RSS’s mouthpiece Organiser.
Clearing the air on the widely-reported lack of coordination between RSS-BJP workers on the ground this election season, Sharda said that the BJP workers and local leaders did not reach out to their “ideological allies” in this election, in the article titled “Modi 3.0: Conversation for course correction”, which was published Monday.
The onus of reaching out to the RSS to do more than asking people to cast their vote in an election is on the BJP, Sharda said. “Did they? My experience and interaction tells me, they did not. Was it lethargy, overconfidence, sense of comfort that “ayega toh Modi hi, Ab ki bar 400+? I do not know,” he wrote.
“Neglect of older dedicated workers who worked without the urge for recognition by the new age social media-aided selfie powered activists is apparent… If BJP volunteers do not reach out to RSS, they have to answer why they thought it was not required,” he added.
The RSS leader’s article comes weeks after BJP president J.P. Nadda’s statement in an interview during the elections that the BJP was no longer dependent on the RSS to win elections.
“RSS is not a field force of the BJP,” the Organiser article read. Besides, the “false ego that only BJP leaders understand ‘realpolitick’ and RSS cousins were village bumpkins is smirk-worthy,” wrote Sharda.
Commenting on Nadda’s statement, Sharda told ThePrint that while it is a fact that the BJP has grown into a full-fledged organisation that does not require hand holding, the timing of Nadda’s statement, and the way it was reported and interpreted, led to some resentment among local RSS karyakartas, who felt that they were not needed.
Moreover, Sharda criticised how local leaders were neglected in favour of defectors, who were brought in in large numbers before the elections. The idea that every seat can be won on Modi’s name also has limited value, he wrote. “This idea became self-defeating, when candidates were changed, imposed at the cost of local leaders and defectors given more importance.”
“Sacrificing even well-performing Parliamentarians to accommodate later comers hurt… Disinterest of local BJP workers was due to this factor too,” he said in the piece.
About Maharashtra specifically, Sharda wrote that the state is a “prime example of unnecessary politicking and avoidable manipulations”.
“NCP faction led by Ajit Pawar joined BJP though BJP and split SS (Shiv Sena) had a comfortable majority,” he said. “Sharad Pawar would have faded away in two-three years as NCP would have lost energy with infighting between cousins. Why was this ill-advised step taken?” he remarked.
“In a single stroke, BJP reduced its brand value. After years of struggle to be numero uno in Maharashtra, it became just another political party without any difference,” he added.
Sharda also listed a number of policy measures that the BJP-led government has not implemented in the last ten years. The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) books are yet to be changed, more cow protectors have lost their lives than cow smugglers, Mughal structures have been beautified, while Hindu ones languish, and the WAQF law, which “allows Muslims to take away any property” through misuse, is left untouched, he said.
(Edited by Mannat Chugh)