New Delhi: Earlier this month, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah met Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat and attended Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha (ABPS), the highest decision-making body of the ideological fountainhead of the ruling dispensation, to seek support for the Lok Sabha battle.
While the RSS is an inseparable part of the BJP’s larger poll machinery, there is a marked change in the narrative this time compared to 2014.
Unlike 2014 when the RSS ran a parallel campaign to ensure that the BJP gets a historic mandate, there is a prevailing sense this time that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah are extremely capable of pulling it off themselves.
The RSS overdrive in 2014 came as it was considered to be a watershed election at par with 1977 — when Janata Alliance was able to displace the Congress for the first time — in terms of its political significance.
New Delhi’s political circles are already abuzz with talks that the RSS backs Union Minister Nitin Gadkari for the top job if the BJP falls short of numbers.
Despite a changed narrative this time, the BJP gets the benefit of the vast RSS network across the country. This machinery will come handy again.