The Bharatiya Janata Party won 22 out of the 30 Lok Sabha seats it contested in Bihar last year. A major factor in this success was the hard work put in by the BJP’s parent organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. RSS cadres ran the show on the ground: they mobilised voters and mastered the art of booth management. Eighteen months on, though, with Bihar assembly election in full swing, the involvement of the RSS appears to be rather minimal.
RSS insiders confirm that a tension has crept into its relationship with the BJP because of the apparent attempt by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah to end the BJP’s overwhelming dependence on its ideological mentor. A senior RSS office-bearer said that these efforts include Shah’s pet project to train 15 lakh new party workers by January, which is when Shah will be up for re-election as BJP president.
The RSS has kept mum on the issue, but its top brass at Nagpur have been anxiously watching the progress of this massive exercise from the sidelines. “The RSS is not totally inactive in the Bihar election,” said the office-bearer. "But it is aware that a BJP victory could complicate the relationship within the Sangh Parivar."
Storm brewing
The first sign of strained ties became apparent mid-September, when RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat called for a social review of the country’s policy of reserving jobs and seats in educational institutions for members of marginal communities. His remarks put the BJP on the backfoot in election-bound Bihar, exposing the party to to criticism that it wanted to abolish quotas to appease its upper-caste voters
Despite repeated clarifications over the past month and Bhagwat's praise for BR Ambedkar in his Dusserah speech on Thursday, BJP leaders are still struggling to regain the trust of Other Backward Castes and Dalits in the state.
But Bhagwat’s comments are not the only reflection of the BJP-RSS tension. It is hard to locate RSS cadres on the ground in Bihar in constituencies being contested by the BJP. And the RSS is completely inactive in seats being contested by the BJP’s allies – the Lok Janshakti Party, the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party and the Hindustani Awam Morcha. This is a conscious decision on the part of the RSS.
“The Sangh organised a meeting of Vaishali district’s branch level office-bearers on October 10 to allocate election responsibilities,” said Rakesh Kumar, the Sangh official in charge of Hajipur and joint coordinator of the seat, which goes to the polls on October 28. “The RSS decided not to assign any responsibility for four Vaishali constituencies in which BJP’s allies fielded candidates.”
Lack of interest
Kumar contrasts this with the situation last year, when the RSS’ hard work in Hajipur laid the foundation for Lok Janshakti Party president Ram Vilas Paswan’s victory. He admits that the RSS’ overall ground support for the assembly election pales in comparison to efforts during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. “We have formed committees in almost all the wards in Hajipur assembly constituency,” he said. "But to tell you the truth, neither the backup support nor the response of the people is of the kind I witnessed during the Lok Sabha election. The Sangh’s monitoring is not at par with our efforts last year.”
In Muzaffarpur district, the RSS has yet to get its act together with just a week to go for the fourth phase of the election. “No formal committee has been formed here,” said Raushan Kumar, the RSS pracharak responsible for Muzaffarpur town. “Our cadres are active in constituencies where the BJP has fielded candidates, but there is no organised attempt to mobilise voters.”
He laughed off a question about the RSS’ involvement in constituencies being contested by the BJP’s alliance partners. “The Sangh has many things to do,” Kumar said. "We hardly get enough time."
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RSS insiders confirm that a tension has crept into its relationship with the BJP because of the apparent attempt by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah to end the BJP’s overwhelming dependence on its ideological mentor. A senior RSS office-bearer said that these efforts include Shah’s pet project to train 15 lakh new party workers by January, which is when Shah will be up for re-election as BJP president.
The RSS has kept mum on the issue, but its top brass at Nagpur have been anxiously watching the progress of this massive exercise from the sidelines. “The RSS is not totally inactive in the Bihar election,” said the office-bearer. "But it is aware that a BJP victory could complicate the relationship within the Sangh Parivar."
Storm brewing
The first sign of strained ties became apparent mid-September, when RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat called for a social review of the country’s policy of reserving jobs and seats in educational institutions for members of marginal communities. His remarks put the BJP on the backfoot in election-bound Bihar, exposing the party to to criticism that it wanted to abolish quotas to appease its upper-caste voters
Despite repeated clarifications over the past month and Bhagwat's praise for BR Ambedkar in his Dusserah speech on Thursday, BJP leaders are still struggling to regain the trust of Other Backward Castes and Dalits in the state.
But Bhagwat’s comments are not the only reflection of the BJP-RSS tension. It is hard to locate RSS cadres on the ground in Bihar in constituencies being contested by the BJP. And the RSS is completely inactive in seats being contested by the BJP’s allies – the Lok Janshakti Party, the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party and the Hindustani Awam Morcha. This is a conscious decision on the part of the RSS.
“The Sangh organised a meeting of Vaishali district’s branch level office-bearers on October 10 to allocate election responsibilities,” said Rakesh Kumar, the Sangh official in charge of Hajipur and joint coordinator of the seat, which goes to the polls on October 28. “The RSS decided not to assign any responsibility for four Vaishali constituencies in which BJP’s allies fielded candidates.”
Lack of interest
Kumar contrasts this with the situation last year, when the RSS’ hard work in Hajipur laid the foundation for Lok Janshakti Party president Ram Vilas Paswan’s victory. He admits that the RSS’ overall ground support for the assembly election pales in comparison to efforts during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. “We have formed committees in almost all the wards in Hajipur assembly constituency,” he said. "But to tell you the truth, neither the backup support nor the response of the people is of the kind I witnessed during the Lok Sabha election. The Sangh’s monitoring is not at par with our efforts last year.”
In Muzaffarpur district, the RSS has yet to get its act together with just a week to go for the fourth phase of the election. “No formal committee has been formed here,” said Raushan Kumar, the RSS pracharak responsible for Muzaffarpur town. “Our cadres are active in constituencies where the BJP has fielded candidates, but there is no organised attempt to mobilise voters.”
He laughed off a question about the RSS’ involvement in constituencies being contested by the BJP’s alliance partners. “The Sangh has many things to do,” Kumar said. "We hardly get enough time."