RSS, BJP discuss crucial issues

BJP leaders have given their reporting on the ground situation, which was compared with the internal surveys of the RSS and the inputs available with it. The Sangh will decide for the BJP the roadmap on Govt-formation

The RSS has to take a call is on accommodating the senior BJP leaders, who feel marginalised. The issue is L K Advani would find a berth in the Cabinet or whether his role would be limited to that of NDA Chairman

New Delhi: BJP President Rajnath Singh on Sunday called on RSS top-brass to discuss the post-poll strategy. The two-hour-long meeting is being seen as crucial, as the focus now shifts to the all-important issue of Government-formation, in the light of the numbers that the BJP gets on May 16, the day of counting, besides the issue of accommodating BJP senior leaders, who are complaining of marginalisation.

This meeting comes close on the heels of BJP Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi’s meeting with RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat on Saturday. The BJP leaders were understood to have given their reporting on the ground situation, which was compared with the internal surveys of the RSS and the inputs available with it. The Sangh will decide for the BJP the roadmap on Government-formation.

According to sources, the issues discussed included the situation that arises after the results. While the BJP exudes confidence of winning 300 seats in the Lok Sabha, it is also bracing for a possible scenario, where the BJP could marginally fall short of the magic figure. The Sangh and the BJP want to make all-out efforts to install Modi as the next PM.

Modi, himself, had signaled a softening of his stand towards the fag-end of the poll campaign, when he declared his readiness to do business with those, whom he virulently attacked during the course of electioneering, including West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, Tamil Nadu CM J Jayalalithaa and BSP supremo Mayawati.

Efforts are also on to zero-in on other smaller players, who can help raise the seats tally of the BJP.

It is learnt that the RSS favours Modi retaining Varanasi, in the event of his securing the seat, and vacating Vadodara in Gujarat, instead, where he can get anyone elected, following his resignation.

The RSS had played a decisive role in the choice of Modi as the BJP Prime Ministerial candidate and in silencing his detractors within the saffron party. The Sangh was involved in micro-managing the electioneering and RSS workers were out on the ground during the poll campaign. The RSS not only activated its pracharaks, but also its outfits like the ABVP and threw its weight behind the Modi-for-PM campaign.

Another ticklish issue on which the RSS has to take a call is on accommodating the senior BJP leaders, who feel marginalised. The issue is whether BJP patriarch L K Advani would find a berth in the Union Cabinet or whether his role would be limited to that of NDA Chairman. Murli Manohar Joshi had recently called on RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat to discuss the issue of the role for the BJP senior leaders.