By Liz Mathew
For the first time since he became the Prime Minister in 2014, Narendra Modi is expected to visit the RSS headquarters in Nagpur, on March 30.
Modi is scheduled to be in Nagpur to lay the foundation stone for a building extension at Madhav Netralaya Eye Institute & Research Centre that day, and could visit the RSS headquarters to hold discussions with Sangh leaders, including chief Mohan Bhagwat, sources said.
Madhav Netralaya issued a press release Monday that said, as per a PTI report, that apart from PM Modi, the foundation-laying event will be attended by Bhagwat, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Union minister Nitin Gadkari.
The meeting between Modi and Sangh leaders assumes significance as the BJP is set to get a new national president soon, who would lead the party into the next round of state elections, starting this year and lasting through 2026.
Ahead of the Lok Sabha polls last year, the Modi government’s ties with the BJP’s ideological parent were seen as strained. In an interview with The Indian Express on May 17, current BJP president J P Nadda, responding to a question on how the RSS relations with the party had changed between Atal Bihari Vajpayee as PM and Modi, had said: “Shuru mein hum aksham honge, thora kum honge, RSS ki zaroorat padti thi… Aaj hum badh gaye hain, saksham hain… toh BJP apne aap ko chalaati hai (In the beginning, we would have been less capable, smaller and needed the RSS. Today, we have grown and we are capable… so the BJP runs itself). That’s the difference.”
For many in the Sangh, this was a signal from the Modi-led BJP which, as it is, is less beholden to the RSS compared to its predecessors, given Modi’s own popularity.
While leaders of both the BJP and RSS maintained that the issues were mainly owing to a communication gap and that these had been resolved, the Sangh keeping a distance from the party during campaigning was believed to have been one of the reasons for the BJP performing below expectations and ending way short of a majority.
This story was originally published in indianexpress.com. Read the full story here.
