RSS axes Goa Chief Subhash Welingkar

NEW DELHI: BJP president Amit Shah’s cold electoral calculations for party’s electoral prospects in Goa seem to have weighed heavily in the mind of the RSS that relieved its Goa unit chief from its responsibility.

“Amitji has sought support from the RSS to rein in its functionary that appeared to be destabilising BJP’s goodwill among the Christian community,” confided a BJP source few days ago withholding the shape of things to come. Days later, RSS has relieved Subhash Welingkar from his responsibility as the local RSS unit head.

Welingkar was spearheading a drive against the BJP government over funding to English medium schools popular among Christian minority community in the state. He had gone public with his objections to state government’s support to English medium schools and demanded it be stopped and continued only for Konkani and Marathi medium schools.

However, the state BJP unit found little merit in the demand and had sought the support from central leadership over local RSS unit’s confrontation with BJP-led state government in the state. Though this issue has been hanging fire for some time, a decision was necessitated began preparing for 2017 assembly elections in the state.

Amit Shah took stock of the political situation in the state during his recent visit there as part of Tiranga Yatra celebrations. Subsequently, Shah appointed Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, a favourite of RSS, as the elections in-charge of the state last week. Shah had dashed down to Bhopal for an unscheduled visit last Thursday for a closed door meeting with RSS general secretary Bhaiyyaji Joshi and RSS joint general secretary Krishna Gopal.

Shah is believed to have taken up the Goa issue with the Sangh leadership. It was followed up subsequently with another meeting this week, a BJP source confided.