RSS to BJP: Clean up act, get set for polls

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Perturbed over the growing crisis in the BJP, including the manner in which it tried to expel its leader Sanjay Joshi and the controversy created by senior leader L.K. Advani’s recent blog, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat met the BJP top brass, including party chief Nitin Gadkari.

Bhagwat, who was in the national capital, also made it clear to the BJP that the RSS is unhappy with the way Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi put pressure on the party top brass to first compel Joshi, his bête noire, to quit the national executive and then the party.

The RSS, it is learnt, has told the BJP leaders any grievance should be discussed only within the party forum and not otherwise, apparently disapproving of Advani’s blog which had targeted Gadkari. The RSS told the BJP that its high time that it put its house in order and start preparing for the 2014 general polls.

It could be recalled that while the BJP had last week claimed that Joshi had quit the party, Joshi had maintained that he had only given up Uttar Pradesh poll management responsibilities. He also had to resign from the party’s national executive last month after the Gujarat CM threatened to quit the same body if Joshi remained its member.

Modi had skipped last year’s national executive meet and did not campaign in the recent Assembly polls as he was miffed over Joshi’s inclusion in the UP poll management committee.

Other than Gadkari, the RSS chief also met senior leaders M.M. Joshi, Ramlal and Uma Bharti. Bhagwat also met Joshi. BJP parliamentary party chairman L.K. Advani, who was in Chennai as part of a parliamentary panel, is also expected to meet Bhagwat.

Sources disclosed that the RSS is miffed over the recent controversy created by Advani’s blog, which targeted Gadkari and criticised some of the decisions taken by the BJP chief.

Advani had written that the mood within the BJP was not upbeat and had criticised recent decisions taken by the party, under Gadkari’s leadership, including inclusion of scam-tainted former UP minister Babu Singh Kushwaha.

There are speculations that Advani is not happy with Gadkari getting a second term, which was decided recently.