Parivar to improve coordination

Another meeting of senior leaders of different constituents of the Sangh Parivar and the BJP is on the cards to evolve a mechanism to ensure better co-ordination and regular dialogue among them.

The meeting, expected here in a fortnight, will be a sequel to a similar exercise undertaken by the party leadership in Mumbai last month, where BJP president M Venkaiah Naidu along with his general secretaries — Pramod Mahajan, Rajnath Singh and Sanjay Joshi — met senior leaders of the RSS and the Swadeshi Jagran Manch.

That the differences on economic issues remained unresolved despite the Mumbai meeting became evident when Dattopant Thengdi, founder of the Bharatiya Majdoor Sangh — a trade union wing of the RSS, attacked the government and Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on economic policies.

Thengdi also targeted Union Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie for running down B R Ambedkar in one of his books.

According to government sources, Vajpayee and Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani are also expected to participate in the proposed meeting and make an effort to bridge the widening gulf between the BJP and the BMS-SJM combine and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad.

All senior RSS leaders and certain VHP leaders will also be invited to the meeting.

In fact, the initiative has much significance for the BJP which will be facing elections in four states —Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi, later this year.

With the Gujarat experience demonstrating the VHP's potential in turning the tide in favour of the Hindutva, the BJP leadership does not want to lose its support.

However, the running feud between the Union government and the VHP leadership over the Ayodhya issue exposes the deep-seated mistrust between the BJP and the VHP.

Significant influence of the RSS-VHP combine in Rajasthan has also prompted the BJP leadership to solicit the Sangh Parivar's support for the coming elections. And the Vishwa Hindu Parishad deployed its firebrand general secretary Praveen Togadia to campaign on hard-core Hindutva issues in the state that led to his arrest.

"Now the election will turn into the VHP versus Sonia Gandhi and the BJP will be a natural beneficiary," said a VHP leader. But the fact that the election will not be contested on a political agenda in Rajasthan explains the BJP's dilemma.

Similarly in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, where the BMS has a significant following among workers, the impression of a fractured Sangh Parivar would damage the BJP's cause.

With factional feuds in these states breaking out in the open, the BJP leadership is in a hurry to persuade the Parivar's mass-organisations to fall in line and lend their cadres' support for the elections.

But there is a lot of scepticism within the Sangh Parivar over the "sudden change of heart in the BJP" towards the SJM-BMS combine and the VHP. "Perhaps, the immediate cause is the Assembly elections," said one leader.

The New Delhi meeting is aimed at resolving the differences as soon as possible.