Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leader Krishna Gopal was at a loss for words on Friday when disgruntled members of his outfit asked him why the saffron body remains a separate entity from the Bharatiya Janata Party even as it is making all crucial decisions for it in Uttar Pradesh.

The query, posed at a closed-door meeting in Ayodhya on Friday, left the RSS joint-general secretary red-faced, according to insiders, as the RSS pegs itself as a cultural and apolitical organisation that lays the ideological groundwork for the BJP.

“Krishna Gopal looked rattled,” said a local RSS leader who was at the hour-long meeting. “His face became red, but he maintained his cool and did not respond to the query.”

The meeting was part of a high-level exercise that the RSS is holding in eastern Uttar Pradesh, to placate local leaders and cadre who felt they had been left out of the candidate-selection process in the state, where elections are underway. While BJP leaders were disgruntled about being overlooked during ticket distribution, many RSS leaders felt their opinion had not been taken into account despite the prominent role that Dattatreya Hosabale, also a joint-general secretary of the organisation, played in candidate-selection.

Gopal’s meeting was attended by key local leaders of the BJP and RSS in the five Assembly seats of Faizabad district – Ayodhya, Bikapur, Gosainganj, Milkipur and Rudauli – which votes on February 27. None of the BJP candidates from these seats was invited to the meeting, officials said.

Sangh parivar officials said that Gopal also held one-on-one meetings with some BJP leaders who felt dejected after they were denied tickets.

The RSS leader is likely to hold fire-fighting exercises in other parts of poll-bound eastern Uttar Pradesh, officials in the outfit said.

Miffed leaders

The main grouse of local Sangh leaders in Faizabad is that the party overlooked loyalists, instead giving tickets to perceived outsiders or turncoats from other parties. Barring Rudauli, from where sitting BJP MLA Ramchandra Yadav is contesting, all other seats are fielding candidates who had joined the party just months back.

Ayodhya in Faizabad is a highly prestigious constituency for the BJP as well as the RSS and they believe the area is home to the Ram janam bhoomi,or the birth place of lord Rama. Building a Ram temple there has been a key election issue for the party. The BJP held this seat for almost two decades till 2012, when it lost the Assembly elections to Samajwadi Party’s Pawan Pandey.

BJP workers were so upset that the ticket for this seat was given to Bahujan Samaj Party turncoat Ved Prakash Gupta that on January 25, they reportedly tried to hold two party leaders hostage – Faizabad MP Lallu Singh and district party president Awadesh Pandey – at the district office. They also burnt effigies of Om Mathur, the party’s national general secretary in charge of Uttar Pradesh.

There is similar unrest among party workers in the Bikapur, Gosainganj and Milkipur seats as well, as also in several other parts of Uttar Pradesh, especially in the eastern districts of the state,” a senior BJP leader of Faizabad said.

Before he reached Ayodhya on Thursday, Gopal had held another meeting with restive RSS and BJP functionaries at the Gonda district on Wednesday, which will also caste its vote on February 27.

“From Ayodhya, he left for Ambedkar Nagar,” said a senior RSS functionary in Ayodhya. “In the next 10 days, he is likely to tour most of the districts of eastern UP where he will meet annoyed party leaders and RSS workers.”