BJP and RSS re-kindle closer coordination for upcoming Assembly elections

RSS-BJP coordination committees set up for Maharashtra and Haryana Assembly polls to bridge gaps and ensure success.

After large sections of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) cadre stayed away from election work during the recent Lok Sabha election, the BJP has actively wooed back its ideological mothership, with the RSS-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) coordination committees for the upcoming Maharashtra and Haryana Assembly elections being set up.

In Maharashtra, RSS joint general secretary Atul Limaye has been told to coordinate efforts between the BJP and RSS for the narrative and the campaign.

“During the Lok Sabha elections, many of the RSS cadres had kept away from the campaign and [from] drumming support for Mahayuti candidates as they were upset with the inclusion of the Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in the alliance, and other internal issues. After this, efforts have been made to effect a rapprochement within the ideological parivar (family), and [to enable] closer coordination,” a senior leader in the Maharashtra BJP said.

For Haryana, another RSS joint general secretary, Arun Kumar, who is otherwise also in charge of coordination between the BJP and the RSS, is the point person. Both organisations held marathon meetings several days ago on the Haryana Assembly election to thrash out campaign and other issues. Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan (the BJP’s in-charge for the Haryana election), and Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini were present at those meetings.

The Lok Sabha election exposed the testy relationship between the RSS and the BJP, which was not helped by BJP president J.P. Nadda’s statement during an interview that the BJP was now “saksham” (capable) of deploying its own personnel for the campaign. After the BJP came back to power, albeit with a reduced number of 240 seats and dependent on allies, including the Janata Dal-United (JD-U) and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), to form a government at the Centre, there have been attempts to bridge the distance between the BJP and the RSS.

Senior RSS man Suresh Soni has been mediating between the top leadership in both the BJP and the RSS, and interestingly, the government recently notified an order that lifted a ban on public servants from being a member of the RSS, a move it could have undertaken anytime in the past 10 years that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has been in power.

The upcoming Assembly elections in Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Haryana are crucial to the BJP as it’s defending its government in two States, and hoping to come back to power in the third. More importantly, success or failure in these elections will be crucial to the political authority that the BJP would want vested in itself.