General elections 2014: 2,000 RSS men to run BJP after polls

NEW DELHI: The RSS has plans to loan some 2,000 of its committed cadre to BJP to ensure that the Sangh ideology does not get diluted if the party forms the next government. The move is aimed at addressing the concern of power corrupting and weakening the party’s ideological core, RSS sources said.

Senior party leaders usually take over the reins of the government when a party comes to power, creating an organisational vacuum. The RSS strategy is to move in hardcore cadres into the party at various levels who will strengthen the party without getting into electoral politics. The effort is seen as a move to prevent a possible tilt of balance of organisational power in favour of the heavy weights in the government.

Sources in the RSS say that it is a long-term plan, envisaging induction of these members in the party over the next two to three years. They are expected to work their way up and to wrest control of the party in about five years, the sources said.
The plan has already been put in place and the inflow of RSS functionaries in the party has started. In Uttar Pradesh, for instance, three members of the RSS have been posted in sensitive positions in the past two weeks alone – Ratnakar Pandey in Lucknow, Chandra Shekhar Pandey in Varanasi and Bhawani Singh in Rae Bareilly.

Similar movement is happening in other states too.

BJP president Rajnath Singh didn’t respond to an email seeking comment. RSS spokesperson Manmohan Vaidya told ET that the movement of Sangh cadres into the BJP “is a natural process.” He said that currently all of them were focused on 2014 general elections in national interest. “The rest of the things will be taken up after the elections. Induction of our workers may be need based.”

Incidentally, this is not the first time the RSS has undertaken such an exercise. It last happened in a systematic manner in 1988-89 when Madhukar Dattatreya ‘Balasaheb’ Deoras was the RSS chief. He had sent Narendra Modi along with KN Govindacharya, Seshadri Chari and L Ganeshan among others to strengthen the BJP. Other RSS members followed.

“The party was at a low and there was an urgent need to breathe life into it. That was the time we all were sent to BJP,” said Chari. “RSS believes that not everybody in the party should be in the government. The party can’t be neglected at any time. The RSS members will ensure it doesn’t happen and the BJP does not become weak organisationally,” Chari told ET.