Jagat Prakash Nadda’s tenure as Bharatiya Janata Party president was to end in January last year, but was extended till June 30 this year. The party had to amend its constitution to empower the parliamentary board to take a decision on the new BJP president, “including his or her term and its extension in emergency situations”.
It is October and Nadda, now also the Union health minister, remains caretaker BJP president with no sign of agreement emerging on his successor. Informal contact has been made several times between the Prime Minister’s side and the RSS establishment, but the differences are so deep and wide that the negotiations have been put off till after the Maharashtra assembly elections.
Last month, the two sides met at Rajnath Singh’s residence. Apart from Rajnath, the BJP was represented by Amit Shah and B.L. Santhosh. The RSS sent its general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale, who is slated to be the next sarsanghchalak, and Arun Kumar. During the 5-hour meeting, several names came up for consideration. But those were found unacceptable to Nagpur. Officially, the meeting was described as a ‘regular’ interaction or samanvaya session where the question of a new BJP president ‘also’ came up for discussion.
The tradition is that the RSS side does not suggest any specific names for president; these come from the BJP, and the proposals are considered and endorsed in a cordial manner. This time it is not so.
Media reports said the samanvaya meeting decided to wait until after the elections in Maharashtra and Jharkhand. While the government wanted as BJP president someone they can work with, the RSS emphasis was on a person with ‘political experience and capable of functioning with autonomy.’
Even before the meeting, BJP sources were telling the media that an interim or working president would be announced till agreement was reached on the choice for president. This was to be done before the Palakkad conference of the RSS. But sharp differences scuttled that too.
Eight or nine names are being spoken of as nominees. Among them are pracharak-turned-BJP general secretary Sunil Bansal and former ABVP president Vinod Tawde, who is also considered closer to RSS leader Hosabale. The other names are C.R. Paatil, Manohar Lal Khattar, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Rajnath Singh, Bhupender Yadav, Devendra Fadnavis and Dharmendra Pradhan.
Chouhan and Rajnath are senior ministers and had found favour with the RSS but the Prime Minister is reluctant to relieve them. The differences between the RSS and the BJP are so sharp that Nadda will continue as caretaker till the end of this year or more.
The government side wants someone like Nadda. They want the party and its president as an adjunct under Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. For them, the BJP’s role is to support the government on any decision it takes. This is in line with the manner in which all statutory bodies, such as the CAG, Election Commission, CIC, CVC and NSO, have been rendered comatose.
But Nagpur would like an organisation that is free to independently propose policies and programmes to the government. The BJP during the Vajpayee regime had such an independent but constructive approach. This was when K.S. Sudarshan led the RSS.
The party stood solidly with the government but also criticised it on issues like the insurance regulatory bill and rising prices. Vajpayee frequently invited BJP leaders to dinner meetings to sort out differences. Unlike the BJP meetings now that Modi attends only to deliver homilies, those meetings saw honest discussions which could get heated. Vajpayee twice threatened to resign as Prime Minister because of differences with the party, including once at the BJP parliamentary party meeting on July 31, 2001. During Vajpayee’s six years in power, the BJP was supportive but assertive. We don’t know whether Nagpur would like to restore such a constructive role to the BJP organisation.
Since 1980 when the BJP was formed, the RSS had a cosy relationship with its political wing. It ‘lent’ its pracharaks to the BJP at the Centre and in the states. In the early years, there was also the practice of the RSS deputing a senior pracharak to the BJP as a general secretary who acted as a coordinator or ‘political commissar.’ For many years, Sunder Singh Bhandari held this crucial role. Political commissar was a position in the Soviet army during its early years when the soldiers were mostly drawn from the remnants of the Tsar’s army, and there was a need to exert political and ideological control over them.
As part of this arrangement, the RSS always had a crucial role in the choice of the BJP president and the main players in the national executive. When Amit Shah was made party president, Nagpur had readily endorsed it. Now that the relations between the two sides are not as happy, the RSS appears to be insisting on an agreeable incumbent.
AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal, meanwhile, has tried to rub salt into the wound by asking a few embarrassing questions to the RSS boss. When Modi became Prime Minister in 2014, he had shunted veterans like L.K. Advani to the Margdarshak Mandal and 75 became the effective retirement age in the party. Next year, Modi turns 75. But Amit Shah has said the rule will not apply to Modi, arguing that it is not written anywhere in the BJP’s constitution. Does the RSS agree with such differential treatment, Kejriwal has asked.
The AAP chief has also asked Mohan Bhagwat, who talks of high political morality, whether he endorses the Modi government’s misuse of the Enforcement Directorate and the CBI to break rival political parties and put their leaders in jail. Is this in the interests of democracy, Kejriwal wants to know.
He has asked Bhagwat if the RSS chief agrees with the way Modi has been inducting into the party leaders whom he had himself once accused of corruption? Will a corrupt person become clean if he joins the BJP, Kejriwal has asked, citing several examples.
Tailpiece: RSS leaders Mohan Bhagwat, Dattareya Hosabale and others have moved into a swanky new office in Delhi’s Jhandewalan. Built on a 2.5-acre plot, the corporate-style edifice has three towers each with 12 storeys – the latest offering from Modi’s building spree, after the Central Vista and the BJP headquarters. Each tower has 80 rooms and five elevators. Bhagwat himself will occupy the top floor of the middle tower. The complex has a 20-bed hospital and a car park that can accommodate 200 vehicles. And, of course, CCTV cameras and the CISF to look after security. All this has touched off rumours that the RSS might shift its headquarters from Nagpur to New Delhi.
P. Raman is a veteran journalist.
This article was originally published on The Wire on October 4, 2024.
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