The death of senior RSS ideologue H V Seshadri means bad news for the BJP. Having lost a top sympathiser in the RSS leadership, the BJP will find it tougher to deal with the Parivar with which its relationship has hit an all-time low.Till his death in Bangalore today, Seshadri, 79, played the sheet-anchor role in the Parivar and, by virtue of his seniority over Sudershan, often served as the informal RSS boss, say Sangh insiders.More importantly, throughout the BJP-led NDA government’s regime and later, Seshadri had been supporting the Advani-Vajpayee duo.While RSS chief K S Sudershan and former spokesman M G Vaidya gunned for the BJP leadership over ‘‘ideological departures’’, the party banked on Seshadri’s silent support.In fact, it was Seshadri who roped in another Sangh veteran Mohan Bhagwat to issue a clarification over Sudershan’s outburst against Vajpayee and Advani in the ‘Walk the Talk’ interview by The Indian Express Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta. Terming the BJP leadership as old, Sudershan had called for the younger leaders to take over.Even during the recent controversy over Advani’s Jinnah remarks, it was Seshadri who had made the decisive intervention, leading to a new lease of life for the BJP president.Even in the RSS, Seshadri’s exit could see subtle power shifts. Bhagwat could suddenly find himself yielding his current status as the most powerful RSS leader to Sudershan, sources say.The Seshadri eraBorn in 1926 in Karnataka, Hongasandra Venkatramaiah Seshadri was a gold medallist in MSc (Chemistry) from Bangalore University. He became an RSS pracharak in 1946 at Bangalore and by 1980, had become the Sangh head of all South Indian states. At the time of his death, he was all-India Pracharak Pramukh and exercised decisive control over pracharaks across the country. He won the Karnataka Sahitya Akademi Award for in 1982.
