Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leader Indresh Kumar on Thursday said that the Bharatiya Janata Party had failed to secure its majority in the recently-concluded Lok Sabha elections due to “arrogance”, reported PTI.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is the parent organisation of the BJP.

The BJP won 240 Lok Sabha seats in the general election, a significant dip from its tally of 303 seats in 2019. As it fell short of the majority mark of 272 seats, it had to depend on its coalition partners in the National Democratic Alliance to form the government.

“The party which did the bhakti [of lord Ram] but became arrogant was stopped at 241 (sic) but it was made the biggest party,” he said, referring to the BJP. He was speaking at the Ramrath Ayodhya Yatra Darshan Poojan Samaroh in Jaipur.

“And those who had no faith in Ram, they together were stopped at 234,” he said, referring to the Opposition INDIA bloc, of which the Congress emerged as the largest party.

“See the vidhan [law] of Ram Rajya in democracy,” Kumar said. “Those who worshipped Ram but gradually turned arrogant, that party emerged as the biggest party. The vote and power that should have been given to them was stopped by God due to their arrogance.”

“Those who opposed Ram, none of them was given power,” Kumar added. “Even all of them together were made number two. God’s justice is true and enjoyable.”

Kumar’s comments came three days after Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat, remarked that decorum had not been maintained during the Lok Sabha election campaign and that the Opposition should be treated as rivals and not enemies.

On Monday, an article in the organisation’s mouthpiece Organiser said that the 2024 Lok Sabha elections had come as a “reality check for overconfident BJP karyakartas and many leaders”.

“They did not realise that Prime Minister Narendra Modiji’s call of 400+ [seats] was a target for them and a dare for [the Opposition],” it said.

Ratan Sharda, the author of the article, said that such BJP leaders and workers were “happy in their bubble” and were not “listening to the voices on the streets”.