New Delhi: In May this year, in the middle of the Lok Sabha election, BJP president J. P. Nadda had made national headlines when he said the party is now saksham (capable), and no longer needs its ideological mentor Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to campaign for it.
The result of that election, which the RSS cadres largely sat out, was a significantly reduced mandate for the BJP at the Centre.
Just a few months later, the same RSS cadres campaigned tirelessly for the party in Haryana—going door-to-door distributing voter slips and pamphlets, organising thousands of meetings, collecting feedback for the party from the ground, and even recommending poll candidates.
The result has been an entirely unanticipated and unprecedented third consecutive victory for the BJP in the small state.
Coming in the immediate aftermath of months of frosty relations between the BJP and RSS, the Haryana assembly election results show that as opposed to its assertion of independence, the BJP still very much needs its ideological mentor during elections.
As an RSS leader told ThePrint on condition of anonymity, “One hopes that this is a humbling victory for the BJP, and they realise they cannot win elections in the name of one person if they undermine the sangathan.”
“In a sense, this is the first post-Modi victory for the BJP,” the leader added. “And that is because the focus was on the sangathan and not on one person.”
According to RSS insiders, the Haryana verdict shows that the party has gone back to its old normal.
“The BJP has always been a cadre-based party,” the leader quoted above said. “Often, the BJP’s cadre is constituted by members of the RSS itself. In the Lok Sabha election, the party was not listening to its own cadres either, and it suffered…Now, it seems to have learnt its lesson.”
One of the key indications that the RSS worked on the ground this time was the high voter turnout in Haryana, Ratan Sharda, a lifelong member of the RSS, said. “The RSS organised thousands of meetings in Haryana for the election…But still I would say, RSS support is just one of the factors. The main thing is that unlike in the Lok Sabha election, the BJP leaders were listening to RSS and BJP karyakartas on the ground, and that worked.”
According to Sharda, while in the Lok Sabha elections, the local BJP leaders in many places did not even approach the RSS for help, they have now turned around in not just Haryana, but across states, actively working with RSS swayamsevaks.
“The problem was mid-level leaders of the BJP, who joined around 2014, who thought votes can be garnered in the name of the PM or through social media without working on the ground,” Sharda added. “These leaders had no understanding of the kind of ground work that has gone into building the party.”
In the Haryana election, it seems, they have learnt their lesson, and it has paid off, Sharda added. “The BJP needs to follow this Haryana model across India, and it will show results.”
As reported by ThePrint earlier this month, the RSS left no stone unturned to campaign for the BJP in Haryana. Regular samiksha baithaks (meetings between members of the two organisations), door-to-door campaigning by RSS volunteers, efficient distribution of voter slips in every household, regular communication of feedback from the ground by karyakartas to the BJP, and even giving greater inputs on which national leader should campaign in which constituency—the RSS has had a significant say in the BJP campaign.
“The problem was that of overconfidence,” an RSS leader from Haryana said. “As soon as it gave way to humility, the BJP is back…That is because its policies, nationalism are incomparable to that of any other party,” he said.
Sharda agreed. The election result is a huge setback for caste-based politics, which has hit a wall now, he said.