The results of Lok Sabha poll-2024 have come as a reality check for “overconfident” BJP workers who failed to understand that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call of 400+ was a target for them and not for the Opposition, said a story published in Organiser, English mouthpiece of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The article, titled as “Conversation for course correction”, adds that BJP workers and local leaders did not reach out to their ideological allies (RSS) which was one of the key reasons for the loss in 2024, apart from the BJP’s clinical approach in picking up its candidates and induction of Congressmen, who had actively promoted the bogey of saffron terror and persecuted Hindus.
The article written by Ratan Sharda, an active RSS member, noted, “to seek Swayamsevaks’ cooperation in electoral work, BJP workers, local leaders need to reach out to their ideological allies. Did they? My experience and interaction tells me, they did not. Was it lethargy, overconfidence, sense of comfort that ‘Ayega to Modi hi’.”
The writer added, “results of 2024 General Elections have come as a reality check for overconfident BJP karyakartas and many leaders. They did not realise that Prime Minister Narendra Modiji’s call of 400+ was a target for them and a dare to Opposition. Targets are achieved by hard work on the field, not sharing posters and selfies on social media. Since they were happy in their bubble, enjoying the glow reflected from Modiji’s aura, they were not listening to the voices on the streets. However, I am jumping the gun. There are many other lessons, too, of the complex results of these elections.”
The magazine’s article said that the biggest grouse of any BJP or RSS worker and common citizen for years have been difficulty or even impossibility of meeting the local MP or MLA, forget Ministers.
“Just one anecdote — a cultural body to promote Hindu Sikh harmony that took three years to form with no formal office or staff under the last Maharashtra BJP-SS Government as the Minister was ‘busy’, was dissolved in seven days by the incoming MVA Government. After the return of the Mahayuti Government, the team has been waiting for an appointment for one year,” the article quoted.
The author also pointed out how unnecessary ‘politicking’ in States like Maharashtra made the BJP to lose ground.
Without naming any leader, he further added that, “induction of Congressmen, who had actively promoted the bogey of saffron terror and persecuted Hindus, who had called 26/11 RSS Ki Sazish and branded RSS as a terrorist organisation, became BJP leaders without as much as a regret note that they made a mistake or that they were forced by their bosses to speak a lie.”
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The author claimed that this showed the BJP in poor light and hurt RSS sympathisers immensely.
The writer added that Hindutva remains the central theme of the BJP but some of the core issues on which cultural nationalism rests have not received attention.
