Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to visit RSS headquarters in Nagpur, for the first time since he became Prime Minister in 2014 on March 30. He is said to be visiting to bridge the gap widening for him with the RSS leadership.
He is intending to meet RSS top leaders, including Chief Dr Mohan Bhagwat at RSS headquarters and exchange views. He is scheduled to be in Nagpur to lay the foundation stone for a building extension at Madhav Netralaya Eye Institute & Research Centre that day.
Incidentally, Dr Bhagwat will be also attending this event, besides Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Union Minister Nitin Gadkari. It may be recalled that in 2013 when most of BJP Parliamentary Board members were against declaring Modi as party’s PM candidate, it was Dr Bhagwat who met them in person and persuaded them to accept his leadership.
But, after becoming Prime Minister, Modi tried to distance himself from RSS leadership, focusing on improving his personal image. Contrary to RSS core ideology, he was seen as more interested in cultivating a ‘personality cult’.
The gulf reached an all-time low during 2024 Lok Sabha polls, when party president JP Nadda in an interview with The Indian Express asserted that BJP no longer needed RSS help and is capable of running itself.
This has demolished Modi’s ambitious target of winning 400 seats in the polls and even failed to get an absolute majority pushing itself to 240 seats. Since then Modi started to bridge that gap and in the cabinet formation and also various appointments started heeding to RSS pressures.
He succeeded in persuading RSS to play a key role in mobilizing support for BJP in the Haryana, Maharashtra and Delhi assembly elections, where BJP succeeded to register near-impossible wins. Now, he seems to have realized that without RSS support it will be impossible for him to survive, particularly at a time the people are realizing his governance is failing in achieving significant success in any sector.
From that time from various platforms PM Modi started praising RSS and trying to maintain cordial relations with its leadership. He made it a point of praising the RSS, lauding its “commitment to national causes” and “the dedication of its swayamsevaks”.
Presently visiting RSS headquarter and meeting its top leadership is seen as another step to tie any loose ends. A previous meeting of a similar nature happened back in September 2015, when Modi and Dr Bhagwat attended a coordination committee meeting of 93 top RSS-BJP leaders in the national capital.
In his latest podcast with MIT researcher Lex Fridman, posted on Sunday, Modi said an organisation such as the Sangh was unique and likely didn’t exist anywhere else in the world. “Through the RSS, I found a life of purpose,” he said.