The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) on Tuesday made it clear that it will not lend any direct organisational support to either factions of BJP in the forthcoming Assembly Elections. The Sahprant Pracharak of the RSS in Gujarat, Mukundrao Deobankar, while expressing displeasure over the intense infighting within the BJP ranks, said. “As it is, we had decided earlier that we will not support any political party in an organised manner.” He added: “Gujarat election mein bhi hum nirlipt rahenge (We’ll remain uninvolved in Gujarat elections too),” he added. The feud within the party is now being viewed as a dividing factor for the saffron brigade in the state at large. “Whatever is happening is not right and is a sad development,” Deobankar told Newsline, adding that the bickering between Modi and the rebels is like that of two siblings where the helpless elders have no role to play but to watch. The saffron brigade is now a divided house in Gujarat with some supporting incumbent Chief Minister Narendra Modi while others support the rebels. The rift within the party has already seen religious leaders and Bharatiya Kisan Sangh (BKS) siding with the rebels. The godmen in the state, who minced no words in spelling out their single-point agenda of removing Narendra Modi from the hot seat, have already found a Hindutva alternative in Uma Bharati and her Bharatiya Janshakti Party (BJSP). It may be noted that sants have already invited Bharti to Gujarat to lend her support against BJP in the Assembly elections. Meanwhile, BJP, piggybacked to the state corridor of power in 2002 with the active support of the Hindu godmen, is now trying to shed its radical Hindu image. While senior BJP leader of the state Surendra Patel recently said that the sants should refrain from directly indulging in politics, party general secretary Jayanti Barot, while talking to media here on Tuesday, said the “sants are unhappy as they had perceived that once in power, BJP will only pursue the Hindutva agenda in Gujarat, which was not the case” Such stances, meanwhile, are not going down well with the other wings of Sangh Parivar. While the sants, who during the last Assembly elections had projected Modi as the poster boy of Hindutva, are now finding him “anti-Hindu”, the Kisan Sangh is siding with the rebels. Praful Sanjaliya, Gujarat President of Bharatiya Kisan Sangh, had earlier said that if necessary BKS will go so far as to coordinate with the Congress to remove Modi.
