Global challenges, economy, Uttar Pradesh on RSS meet agenda

Rising geopolitical challenges India faces with the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan and the fallout of Covid-19 on small businesses and people's livelihoods are said to be in the agenda at an RSS samanway (coordination) meeting being held in Nagpur.

Top representatives of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), BJP and some other affiliates are participating in the coordination meeting of the Nagpur-headquartered organisation and its affiliates, is a small informal gathering in view of Covid-19, RSS Akhil Bhartiya Prachar Pramukh (media/publicity wing head) Sunil Ambekar said.

“Every year in September a comprehensive meeting is held. However, due to the coronavirus outbreak a small meeting was held last year and this year also a small meeting is held in Nagpur,” he said without disclosing the agenda of the two-day gathering that concluded on Saturday.


Some Akhil Bharatiya (all-India) RSS officebearers and a few of the national-level sanghatan mantris (organisational general secretaries) of VHP, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh and Vidya Bharti (all affiliates), among other organisations, took part in the meeting, Ambekar said.

He said a full-fledged coordination meeting will take place in early 2022 if the coronavirus situation stabilises by then.

RSS leaders said the organisation does not take part in election-related work but groundwork for next year’s Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Gujarat and Goa assembly elections is expected to be discussed in detail during the deliberations.

With the Ram temple and other policy initiatives taken by the Yogi Adityanath that are in line with the RSS’ thinking, elections in UP are particularly important for the Sangh Parivar, and it has been working quietly to strengthen the larger organisation.

Among the other priorities are the ongoing farmers’ agitation against the Centre’s new agriculture and the government's mega celebration of India's 75 years of independence, which the organisation is looking at as an opportunity to promote unsung freedom fighters, particularly in the 1857 uprising, insiders said.