India News
One of the criticisms levied by the RSS leaders, post-electoral verdict was that the BJP had become over confident and arrogant.
This was stated by RSS ideologue and author Ratan Sharda in his op-ed article for the RSS mouthpiece, ‘Organiser’.
Sharda has clarified in a recent interview on what he meant by the BJP’s ‘arrogance’. “Every time there is an election, feedback is taken from the Sangh workers at the grassroots level on the choice of candidates. This time there was no such thing. The suggestions of the Sangh at the ground level were completely ignored. Ignoring Parliamentarians who had been doing good work and candidates and those who had been working selflessly for the Party, defectors were encouraged with absolutely no kind of interaction with the cadre. What’s more, the Party leadership did not even bother to clarify to the cadre and Sangh workers on why a certain candidate was denied the ticket or why a certain ‘defector’ was given the go-ahead. This cost the BJP, big time,” said Ratan Sharda.
He further added that the BJP President Nadda’s statement that the BJP did not ‘need the RSS’ sent the wrong message to the Sangh workers.
For the record, the BJP fielded 110 defectors in the recent Lok Sabha elections and 69 of them lost.
This gamble clearly proved that the BJP was worried only about the ‘winnability’ factor and that winning was given greater prominence over ‘ideological’ loyalty.
People also opined in places like Maharashtra that the BJP only wanted ‘power’ and wasn’t concerned about how it was getting it thereby removing any distinctions between the saffron party and the others.
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