BJP’s organisational structure leaves little room for RSS intervention, says RSS Kerala office-bearers

Kerala’s RSS office-bearers discuss BJP's autonomy, organisational structure, and upcoming centenary celebrations, emphasizing alignment of interests

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) organisational structure leaves little room for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to intervene though their interests remain closely aligned, said State RSS office-bearers.

This was in response to a question on the election of Rajeev Chandrasekhar who has no close association with the Sangh as the new president of the BJP’s Kerala unit.

Prant Karyavah for north Kerala, P.N. Easwaran, Prant Karyavah for south Kerala K.B. Sreekumar and Prantha Pracharak for north Kerala M. Ganeshan spoke this while addressing a press conference here on Thursday (March 27, 2025) to inform about the RSS’ centenary celebration plans and the decisions taken at the annual meeting of Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha (ABPS) held at Bengaluru earlier this month.

“The BJP is an autonomous outfit with organisational set-up up to the booth level. The unanimous selection of Rajeev Chandrasekhar as the new president by the State committee was the culmination of the organisational election right from the booth level. There is no scope for the RSS to intervene in it though we remain closely aligned with the interests of the BJP. The BJP has the freedom to elect its leaders. Mr. Chandrasekhar was unanimously elected and there was quite an excitement about it,” said Mr. Sreekumar.

Asked about reinstating the arrangement of assigning an organisational secretary to the BJP, he said the Kerala BJP has a full-fledged organisational set up and hence, currently there was no need to restore the arrangement.

“We haven’t thought about it yet. Whether that arrangement has been done away with permanently is not something that can be discussed at the regional level. It has to be decided at the organisational level,” he said.

“The RSS’ electoral work is not for helping the BJP, though the party benefits from it, but is based on the idea that the more the number of voters, the better the democratic set up will be. This is part of responsible citizenship, which was among the five core values that the organisation plans to propagate through its people’s outreach campaign as part of the year-long centenary celebrations starting this Vijayadashami,” Mr. Sreekumar said.