Days before Bharatiya Janata Party leader Arun Shourie made his controversial critique of the government in an interview on the Headlines Today channel, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s officials from across Uttar Pradesh launched their own attack on party president Amit Shah for “alienating a large army of party workers and leaders” in the state.
The barrage was fired on April 25 in Ghaziabad, where the RSS functionaries had gathered to discuss preparations for the next assembly elections, due early in 2017.
The closed-door meeting, held in an RSS-run school, was called by BJP general secretary in-charge of Uttar Pradesh Om Prakash Mathur to obtain feedback from RSS functionaries and spur them into action in the run-up to the state polls. It was attended by pracharaks (full-timers) and karyavahs (office-bearers) from across the state. Also present at the day-long meeting were Krishna Gopal, the RSS Sah-sarkaryavah (joint general secretary) and the Sangh’s liaison person for the BJP, as well as Ram Lal, the party’s general secretary in-charge of organisation.
While Shah was absent, state BJP chief Laxmikant Vajpayee and the state party unit’s general secretary in charge of organisation, Sunil Bansal, attended the meeting for two hours and left the venue after making their submissions.
“There was a consensus in the meeting that the party had suffered a general loss of strength and prestige in UP and that Amit Shah’s style of functioning was one of the reasons for this loss,” said a senior RSS functionary who was present.
The meeting concluded that the party had lost ground, particularly in the rural areas of Uttar Pradesh. “Four factors were identified for this alienation ‒ the government’s land acquisition ordinance, the party’s failure to take up the issue of inclusion of Jats in the OBC [Other Backward Classes] list, the Centre’s inability to appear taking steps in the wake of farmers’ suicides and growing dues of sugarcane cultivators,” he added.
At the meeting, the RSS and the BJP leaders conceded that the social equation of upper castes, OBCs and Dalits that had worked in favour of the party during the Lok Sabha elections last year has started falling apart and that in the absence of “any substantial impact” of the Narendra Modi government on the general life of people, the “positive works” of the Akhilesh Yadav government have started becoming visible.
“The meeting drew an extensive plan to regain the lost ground in Uttar Pradesh,” said the RSS leader present at the meeting. “The state BJP leadership has been asked to organise similar meetings of RSS functionaries in various districts of Uttar Pradesh. They have also been asked to convene caste specific meetings of people belonging to lower strata in order to win back the support of the OBCs and Dalits.”
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The barrage was fired on April 25 in Ghaziabad, where the RSS functionaries had gathered to discuss preparations for the next assembly elections, due early in 2017.
The closed-door meeting, held in an RSS-run school, was called by BJP general secretary in-charge of Uttar Pradesh Om Prakash Mathur to obtain feedback from RSS functionaries and spur them into action in the run-up to the state polls. It was attended by pracharaks (full-timers) and karyavahs (office-bearers) from across the state. Also present at the day-long meeting were Krishna Gopal, the RSS Sah-sarkaryavah (joint general secretary) and the Sangh’s liaison person for the BJP, as well as Ram Lal, the party’s general secretary in-charge of organisation.
While Shah was absent, state BJP chief Laxmikant Vajpayee and the state party unit’s general secretary in charge of organisation, Sunil Bansal, attended the meeting for two hours and left the venue after making their submissions.
“There was a consensus in the meeting that the party had suffered a general loss of strength and prestige in UP and that Amit Shah’s style of functioning was one of the reasons for this loss,” said a senior RSS functionary who was present.
The meeting concluded that the party had lost ground, particularly in the rural areas of Uttar Pradesh. “Four factors were identified for this alienation ‒ the government’s land acquisition ordinance, the party’s failure to take up the issue of inclusion of Jats in the OBC [Other Backward Classes] list, the Centre’s inability to appear taking steps in the wake of farmers’ suicides and growing dues of sugarcane cultivators,” he added.
At the meeting, the RSS and the BJP leaders conceded that the social equation of upper castes, OBCs and Dalits that had worked in favour of the party during the Lok Sabha elections last year has started falling apart and that in the absence of “any substantial impact” of the Narendra Modi government on the general life of people, the “positive works” of the Akhilesh Yadav government have started becoming visible.
“The meeting drew an extensive plan to regain the lost ground in Uttar Pradesh,” said the RSS leader present at the meeting. “The state BJP leadership has been asked to organise similar meetings of RSS functionaries in various districts of Uttar Pradesh. They have also been asked to convene caste specific meetings of people belonging to lower strata in order to win back the support of the OBCs and Dalits.”