Sangh plans meet to make PM VHP-proof

However, sources said a meeting of senior RSS and BJP leaders has been planned for the month-end to check the current sniping by Sangh Parivar members at Vajpayee.

Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani and Venkaiah Naidu are expected to attend while efforts are on to rope in VHP leaders too, though Vajpayee is reportedly reluctant to join the discussions if VHP leaders are present.

On the other hand, RSS Sarsanghchalak K S Sudarshan is likely to stay away. Senior RSS leaders H V Seshadari and Mohan Bhagwat, along with joint general secretary (BJP affairs) Madan Dass Devi, are expected to represent the Sangh.

The meeting is patterned on the parleys held between RSS and BJP leaders at Vajpayee’s residence in the last week of April in the aftermath of the BJP national executive meeting at Goa.

The RSS, in the course of the April deliberations, had advised the BJP to revamp its organisational machinery. This did materialise, but the other decision taken during the two-day discussions, to avoid mutual criticism, apparently fell through.

The RSS and its various outfits have been publicly criticising the Vajpayee Government on a variety of issues, particularly economic reforms and terrorism. Under a well-planned strategy, the RSS is by and large talking in terms of policies, while its various arms—VHP, Swadeshi Jagran Manch, Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh and Bharatiya Kisan Sangh—are targeting Vajpayee, Mishra and Planning Commission member N K Singh.

The attack against Mishra, who is also the National Security Advisor, comes after the defeat of the Sangh’s agenda for the trifurcation of the state in Jammu and Kashmir by the defeat of the RSS-floated Jammu State Morcha. The hardliners are also sulking at the way they have been marginalised in the Government’s policy on de-escalation on the Indo-Pak border.

The statement by Ashok Singhal against Mishra is no off-the-cuff remark. Singhal is no Giriraj Kishore, who flayed Mishra today for doing everything to throw India into ‘‘the lap of America.’’ Singhal carries weight in the Sangh and is taken seriously by the family.

Many believe that Singhal could not have made the kind of statement he did without some a nod from a section of the RSS brass.

This is not the first time that one or another offshoot of the Sangh has criticised the PM’s aides. It was soon after the Tehelka scam that the Sangh called for the resignation of both Mishra and N K Singh and at the time, the PM turned the tables on his detractors by threatening to resign himself.