The RSS has now emerged as the prime driver of the BJP poll campaigns in the elections and with the Lok Sabha polls scheduled in April/ May 2024, its role is getting expanded in the electoral strategy of the BJP. It was visibly evident in the assembly elections to the three north-eastern states. Notwithstanding Narendra Modi addressing more than 35 public rallies and holding innumerable road shows in the three states, the RSS had to enter into the electoral scene and took command. Even after taking so much pains and staking his personal credibility, the BJP won a marginal victory in Tripura and became junior partners in other states.
It has been a very acrimonious lesson for the RSS. For its political survival, more than the existence of BJP, it has become imperative that the BJP must win the elections; whether it is the Lok Sabha election of 2024 or the next round of state assembly elections of 2023. BJP losing the election would mean sounding of death knell for the RSS. And the RSS would not allow it happen at any cost.
Modi’s image and charisma is not going to be that productive even in the even in the case of Karnataka assembly election. This is the realization of the RSS now. At the instance of RSS leadership, Modi is now trying to rope in Eswarappa, who had lost his face and credibility for institutionalising corruption in the state. He was nicknamed as 40 per cent politician. Modi could dare to ensure the victory of the party in the state on his own efforts.
The BJP leaders have identified340-plus Lok Sabha seats for guaranteeing party’s victory in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. But the fact remains that it cannot accomplish the mission without the active support of the RSS. However the hard truth is the RSS has identified these seats. In fact the RSS is ready with a detail roadmap for these constituencies.
For obvious reasons Bengal has attained the top priority. There are three major reasons for RSS taking over the command of the electioneering in Bengal. First, acute internecine feud between the groups; one representing the original cadres and the second of the turncoats has left Narendra Modi and Amit Shah in an uncomfortable situation. The two groups are working cross purposes. This has been endangering the interest of the party and eroding its base beyond comprehension. The turncoats are fighting to emerge stronger marginalizing the original BJP activists belonging to hardcore RSS.
Both these groups have miserably failed to break the impregnable support base of Trinamool Congress based on the strong structural base of Bengal’s cultural ethics. At one stage the RSS had tried to communalise the Bengali sense of self respect and cultural ethos by trying to associate some RSS leaders with the Bengali political stalwarts. But their endeavours failed miserably.
Further, the RSS leaders are sceptic of desertion by the former CPI(M) cadres who had switched their loyalties in the wake of Trinamool’s victory in 2011 assembly polls. Basically this support base has an aggressive posture and they have been using their militant political trait against the Trinamool cadres. Party insiders maintain that the victory of the Congress candidate in the recently held assembly election owes to the former left cadres rallying behind their original party.
After the Modi government came to power in Delhi in 2014, the OBCs and EBCs who have migrated from Bihar and eastern UP and settled in the suburbs of Kolkata or in the districts, especially in districts of north Bengal, have joined the saffron rank in the hope that they would be getting a political platform to articulate their feelings and needs. They are the new force. It is interesting to watch that they have raising the slogan of “Jai Sri Ram”. For them the tenets of Bengali culture have been an alien concept. One thing is quite noticeable that they are being used by the factional leaders to serve their own interests.
The RSS camps in the state have witnessed 65 per cent increase in trainees in 2022 The RSS is holding around 70 Prathamik Shikha Borgo primary level training camps. The main focus of the RSS has been to enroll youths. These are primarily from these caste groups. If the sources are to be relied, the RSS has around 75000 fulltime swayamsevaks in the state. Though RSS has already added more than 250 shakhas in the last one year it plans to have around 1000 more shakhas before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections to “reach out” to people at gram panchayat level. The number of shakhas has grown from 1,100 in 2016 to more than 2,000 in the last six years.
The primary reason for the increase of sakhas has been the newly inducted BJP supporters from OBC and EBC have joined the sakhas. RSS leaders feel that increase in number of shakhas would help the BJP candidates win the 2024 Lok Sabha election. Nevertheless it is also a fact that while BJP received more than 40% of the votes in the general election of 2019, it dropped to very low level in the civic elections and bypolls held in the last one and half years.
In January this year RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat came to Bengal on a five day visit. He laid out specific expansion programme before the state leaders and also emphasised on the need for enforcing discipline. But the major issue which was topic of intense discussion was the apprehension that the new entrants, from OBC and EBC may desert the RSS and BJP if their political desires are not fulfilled. These people are denied of any space in Congress, CPI(M) and even TMC. They have rallied behind the BJP in the hope that this will provide them with the forum to articulate their feelings and allow their participation in the decision making process. In case they do not get this facility they may desert the BJP and RSS and opt for some other alternative forum.
Bhagwat was for purging the leaders who were using the RSS and BJP for their personal gains. The RSS strongly feels that the current Bengal BJP leadership is not serious about the future stake of the party. The leaders of two warring factions are not concerned of the future of the party instead they are engaged in the battle for controlling the system of the party in Bengal. The RSS leaders feel that Bengal will have to function as the fulcrum of the BJP in the country. Notwithstanding the RSS has been active in northeast since 1950, it has not succeeded a building a strong cadre base. Had it succeeded the result of this year’s assembly election must have been entirely different.
The RSS leaders also nurse the view that wrong policies and priorities chosen by the Bengal BJP leaders have been responsible for its tardy growth in the state. According to them the leaders like Dilip Ghosh and Suvendu Adhikari keep calling Mamata Banerjee as “Mamata Bano” as proved counterproductive. While this made the 30 per cent Muslim population rally behind her, the Bengalis also treated this as insinuation. The people retaliated by giving her massive majority in the 2021 assembly elections.
The RSS is mainly focusing on the areas where the population of the OBCs and EBCs are quite substantial. Besides Howrah, 24 Parganas, they have large population in some of the north Bengal districts. The RSS has been setting up maximum sakhas in these places. Incidentally during the recent Ram Navami celebration these areas witnessed severe communal clashes. In his recent meeting with the Bengal leaders in Kolkata, Home Minister Amit Shah mentioned of 35 out of the total of 42 seats in the state as the BJP target. RSS leaders of Bengal have not taken it seriously. Their assessment is that it will be difficult to retain the present strength of 18, so there is no question of getting 35 seats. Their strategy has three parts, the comfortable seats, tight seats and very difficult seats. They have are focusing on first two parts so that maximum resources are mobilised for potentially winnable seats without frittering away resources to non-winnable seats.
The Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha’s three-day meeting held from March 12 to 14 in Haryana sent a clear and loud message that the BJP had to win. The strategic importance of Bengal was high on the agenda. The deliberations made it clear that the RSS is not going to take any chance and ensure that BJP comes to the power at Delhi at any cost. Significantly notwithstanding the RSS and BJP having major differences on the functioning of the Modi government, the Sabha refrained from coming out with any cautionary note or discordant expression. It attains more importance as ABPS is the apex decision-making body of the RSS and deliberates upon and seals decisions on important matters, apart from making changes in the Sangh’s hierarchy.
The RSS is also planning to launch a mood assessment programme before the Lok Sabha elections. This will run along with the BJP’s own programmes. Since RSS pracharaks are more rooted, the RSS leadership feels that their report can be most objective in projecting how the rural and urban poor’s minds are working in the year 2023.. Interestingly, the RSS programme seeks to assess the muslim mind in Bengal and the Christian moods in Kerala in the context of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s outreach to both the communities. (IPA Service)
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