RSS organ wants Bharati back in fold

NEW DELHI: Making a pitch for Uma Bharati and the BJP to join hands, RSS mouthpiece Panchjanya has called for former BJP leader and the party to reunite in the name of the Hindu Sangh. However, the idea has few takers both within the BJP as well as the RSS despite the line taken by the RSS organ’s editorial.

The Sangh mouthpiece expressed unhappiness over the showdown and ensuing open fights between the supporters of the BJP and those of Ms Bharati during the Vidisha and Bada Malehra by-elections in Madhya Pradesh recently.

Ms Bharati, who has now launched her own party the Bharatiya Janashakti Party (BJS), had gone to the extent of returning her Z-plus security cover in MP, saying she was all the more insecure with security personnel around as the state chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan “had hatched a conspiracy to kill” her. However, the RSS magazine held that the votes secured by both in MP recently were in fact saffron votes.

The BJP had won the two seats, in what was billed as a test of Mr Chouhan’s popularity and prestige; this, given that Mr Chouhan had represented Vidisha five time since 1991 and Bada Malehra too is a BJP stronghold, vacated by Ms Bharati.

While welcoming the BJP victory, the editorial, however, said the saffron-versus-saffron fight was painful. “Who can derive comfort from the saffron-versus-saffron scene? For whom was this violence, expletives, and cutting into each others’ votes? Are Hindus living in this country to see this saffron versus saffron (fight)?” the editorial asked. Instead, it called for a celebration.

According to it, there ought to be a celebration when the military unity of the Hindu Sangh becomes one against Gazni (an apparent reference to the Congress). “Till when will the Hindu society keep fighting internal feuds and splits?” it added.

The editorial, however, praised Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan for his leadership skills, something that is unlikely to be ever accepted by his arch-rival Ms Bharati.

The Sanyasin herself has recently said that there is no question of her going back to the BJP and in a reference to party seniors Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the LK Advani, she said they were like two widowed aunts whose feet everybody touches but whose advice nobody listens to.