Senior RSS ideologue M.G. Vaidya has stoked a major controversy by suggesting that Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi was behind Ram Jethmalani’s demand for BJP president Nitin Gadkari’s resignation, a statement from which the RSS distanced itself.
The BJP also sought to distance itself from Vaidya’s remark, saying that no such information has been given to the party. In his blog, Vaidya has said the “needle of suspicion in the campaign against BJP president Nitin Gadkari points to Gujarat BJP and chief minister Narendra Modi.”
He also noted that “Ram Jethmalani had in one breath said he is seeking the resignation of Gadkari and that he also wanted to see Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister in 2014.”
While both L.K. Advani and Gadkari have publicly stated that they don’t have Prime Ministerial ambitions, Vaidya, a former spokesman of the RSS, said he “hasn’t read anywhere that Narendra Modi has denied reports of his ambition to become the Prime Minister.”
Vaidya today stood by his remark, saying, “It is my opinion and because Jethmalani has combined two things demanding Gadkari’s resignation and making Narendra Modi as PM, I think that the needle of suspicion goes to Gujarat.
“I did not say that, I just said that needle of suspicion goes to Modi and that raises suspicion if Jethmalani is entitled to his own point of view, I am also entitled to my point of view and the RSS has nothing to do with it.”
However, the RSS official spokesperson Ram Madhav said the views expressed in the blog by Vaidya are personal and this is “not the official RSS line.”
Reacting to Vaidya’s remarks, BJP leader M. Venkaiah Naidu said, “No such information has been given to us. We are not reacting at all. Let the inquiry be over, let there be no trial outside, it is not fair. I don’t know from where this information came. I don’t think that this is view of the RSS. I can also tell you”.