RSS chief sets off succession issue in BJP

LIKE most political parties, the BJP has a penchant for creating optics and staging big-play histrionics that often cloak the serious undertones of the issues at stake. One such issue was the search for a successor to the post of national president. As long as the office was held by Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1980-86) and LK Advani (1986-91), there was relative stability because the BJP was just a speck on a Congress-dominated political landscape. Post 1991, an era of growth, expansion and power was ushered in with Advani replacing Vajpayee. Advani towered over the party but his reign was often marred by internal struggles, instigated by the RSS, the pater familias, that forced the appointments of other chiefs like Murli Manohar Joshi, Kushabhau Thakre and Rajnath Singh.

While BJP chiefs K Jana Krishnamurthi and M Venkaiah Naidu were essentially brought in to placate Advani who trusted them, Joshi and Singh were not his favourites. Thakre was a “compromise" choice, in the words of an insider. The RSS played its hand from behind a veil of secrecy, maintaining that it was a ‘cultural’ outfit and the BJP was not its political progeny.

The first Sangh sarsanghachalak (chief) who was upfront about the RSS’s veto power over the BJP was Rajendra Singh, aka Raju Bhaiyya. As the head from 1994 to 2000, a crucial period in the parivar’s annals when the BJP had its first full-fledged government in Uttar Pradesh, Singh mediated with some Opposition leaders, notably the former Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar, closer to the 1996 election to propose Vajpayee as the prime-ministerial candidate. Singh and Chandra Shekhar were alumni of Allahabad University, where later the former taught physics. They were both Rajputs from UP.

Sniffing the prospect of the BJP gaining power at the Centre, Singh pragmatically realised that with its limited geographical presence, the BJP would not come anywhere close to a majority on its own and would need allies to form a government. As an established hardliner, Advani wouldn’t be acceptable to most outfits in the “secular-socialist" spectrum. Vajpayee did not carry an unwanted baggage at that time and would likely be endorsed more readily.

The RSS’s role in shaping the BJP’s trajectory — which essentially meant pulling the party out of Advani’s grip — was steered by Singh’s successor KS Sudarshan who loved power politics from under the veneer of being a swadeshi proponent and a moralist. Advani’s encomium for Muhammed Ali Jinnah at his mausoleum in Karachi not only riled the Sangh but the BJP too. Advani was forced to resign as president. Rajnath Singh took over from him, but he also quit after the BJP lost the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. That’s when Sudarshan seized the moment, making it clear that he would have the last word on the next president. He explicitly stated that the successor would be young (relatively speaking) and not necessarily from Delhi. In came Nitin Gadkari whose proximity to the RSS as a Nagpur resident and a Maharashtra minister was well known.

The transition from the myth of a hands-off policy on the BJP to a hands-on approach was nailed by the present sarsanghachalak, Mohanrao Bhagwat on July 9. At a book launch in Nagpur, he set the cat among the pigeons when he said, “If you are honoured with a shawl after turning 75, it means you should stop now. You are old, step aside and let others come in." PM Modi turns 75 on September 17. Going by the precedent he set for veterans like Advani, Shanta Kumar and Jaswant Singh, he should retire and join the BJP’s pensioners’ home, the marg darshak mandal. A clearer hint couldn’t have come; it’s for Modi to take it or ignore after mobilising the BJP and the NDA allies behind him.

Unlike Vajpayee who leaned on his principal secretary Brajesh Mishra, to the detriment of ignoring the RSS’s cohorts, and Advani who confronted the Sangh over Jinnah, Modi never took on the Sangh as PM, though he may have locked horns with the VHP and Bharatiya Kisan Sangh as Gujarat CM. The Ram temple construction, the invalidation of Article 35A and the reading down of Article 370 and the amended Citizenship Act were fulfilment of a long-awaited agenda.

Recently, the RSS gave the nod to conduct caste enumeration and virtually persuaded the BJP to shelve the three-language formula that Maharashtra vehemently opposed. Bhagwat was given an elite security cover.

The Sangh has never had it better than under Modi. While Bhagwat hinted at a leadership change in the BJP, he also has to grapple with the prospect of one in the RSS. Bhagwat turns 75, six days before Modi in September. Will he practise what he just preached?

Will the RSS have its way like in the past?

Radhika Ramaseshan is a senior journalist.

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