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RSS : Surat conclave to decide Advani’s fate

	July 04, 2005

The RSS began a three-day meeting at Surat, in Gujarat on Sunday (July 3) which is widely expected to give a new dimension to the RSS-BJP ties. On the eve of the start of the conclave, top Sangh Parivar leaders met on Saturday, July 2 to chalk out the agenda for the conclave. Over 24 senior leaders including RSS chief K.S. Sudarshan and Vishwa Hindu Parishad firebrand leader Parveen Togdia, exchanged views on the matters to come up at the conclave.

Unlike previous RSS meetings which were attended by Advani and former party chief M. Venkaiah Naidu, this time only Sanjay Joshi, Sangh pointsman in the BJP and the party’s general secretary (organization), is the only central leader invited. About 140 delegates, including provincial organizers, all India functionaries of the Sangh and important organizers from Parivar outfits, who hold the key to the BJP’s electoral prospects are attending the three-day meeting.

According to sources, a section of the Sangh leadership is in favour of giving time to Advani to set the party in order and facilitate the smooth hand over of the party’s reins to a second-generation leader in the not too distant a future.

However, VHP leaders including Togadia, who had last month asked Advani to take “sanyas” (renunciation) from politics, are expected to insist on his stepping down as party chief at the earliest and his replacement by a pro-Hindutva leader.

There are reports that the RSS may ask Advani to give up one of the two posts he holds - BJP president and leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha. Organisational sources say the conclave would endorse the views expressed by RSS chief Sudarshan that the BJP chief should quit active politics.

Though Advani has tried everything possible to soften up the Sangh, he is not cutting much ice there. For the RSS brass, the case is over and Advani must go. Sudarshan has even refused to meet him.

But don’t expect a resolution to this effect at the meeting, said sources. The Sangh will do this its own way; the decision will be verbally communicated to the BJP and its compliance would be presumed automatic.

Being an old RSS hand, Advani, it is being said, will be expected to take the message seriously. If he doesn’t, RSS insiders say, he will be totally isolated and it will become impossible for him to continue in either post. If he quits one post, he will most definitely be allowed to keep the other. That’s the bait.



Advani’s supporters for “honourable” exit

The indications are that the Advani camp has all but given up the fight to save its leader. But the Advani supporters are in no mood to permit their leader’s “disgraceful” exit and want a mechanism to be evolved for his “honourable” exit from the organization. Advani met Vice President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat on Thursday, June 30. While the BJP described the meeting as routine, sources say that Shekhawat’s help was sought to neutralise the hardliners in the Sangh Parivar, and the BJP.

Advani’s troubles started after his remarks during his visit to Pakistan last month about Mohd. Ali Jinnah’s secular credentials. Following the cool reception to his remarks in the BJP, he quit as party president, but agreed to continue after the party passed a resolution praising his visit to Pakistan as a diplomatic success, while not agreeing with his remarks about Jinnah. But there were pointers from the RSS and another Sangh outfit, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), that they would have been happier if Advani had stuck to his resignation.

In the interval, several people have been meeting the RSS leaders in a bid to soften their stand.

Janata Dal (United) president George Fernandes held a close door meeting with RSS chief Sudarshan at the organisation’s headquarters in Nagpur on June 28. Fernandes had earlier expressed concern over the crisis in the BJP after Advani’s resignation episode. Ahead of the Surat conclave, BJP vice presidents Venkaiah Naidu and Bal Apte and general secretaries Sanjay Joshi and Rajnath Singh met the RSS joint general secretary Suresh Sonito discuss the RSS conclave’s agenda related to the BJP.



Advani’s aide drops another bombshell

BJP president L.K. Advani’s aide and party secretary Sudheendra Kulkarni dropped another bombshell last week by calling for recasting the party’s ties with the RSS, completely distancing from the VHP, reaching out to Indian Muslims and setting right what he called “the present ideological and organisational disarray” in the party. In his letter dated June 24 to Advani, he said that the RSS must realise that the people of India do not like to see their leaders remote controlled by an external entity. About the VHP, the letter which was published in several newspapers, said, “The BJP must distance itself completely from extremist elements in the VHP, who have derailed the Hindu movement, brought a bad name to the BJP and weakened the larger national cause.”

The timing of the disclosure - on the eve of the crucial RSS meet in Surat slated to discuss Advani’s recent “ideological deviations” - created a stir in the BJP circles with opinion divided on whether Kulkarni would be immediately sacked for his heretical advice. Or, be backed by Advani in the escalating ideological war that began with the BJP chief’s controversial comments on Jinnah and related issues in Pakistan last month. The disclosure of the letter, sources said, has sharpened the battle.



Another BJP leader slams Advani

Former Madhya Pradesh Governor Bhai Mahavir has become the latest BJP leader to criticise party president Advani for what he called deviating from the party line on important issues. In an interview published in a Hindi weekly, the veteran RSS man, who served as Jan Sangh vice president in the sixties, lashed out at Advani and said, “When the president talks of the need to compromise with ideology, the party might as well merge with the Congress,” and liquidite itself.

Mahavir, who was made Governor during NDA rule, also sharply criticised Advani’s remarks on Jinnah, and accused the BJP of turning into a “limited company” and charged the leadership with ideological deviation.

Observers say that Bhai Mahavir may no longer be an important figure in the BJP, but his outburst - like that of the late Sundar Singh Bhandari weeks before his death - underlines the total breakdown of order in an organisation that once prided itself on its discipline.



Yashwant Sinha dropped as BJP spokesperson

The BJP has hit back on former External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha stripping him of his position as party spokesperson. The party action came after Sinha’s criticism of Advani for his Jinnah statement and his recent attack on Jharkhand Chief Minister Arjun Munda. Sinha has refuted reports that he may quit the party, but his name did not figure in the list of the reconstituted team of party spokespersons released on June 28.