New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to meet Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) Chief Mohan Bhagwat in Nagpur on Sunday, in what will mark their first public appearance together since the Ram Mandir consecration in Uttar Pradesh’s Ayodhya on January 22 last year and their first joint event at the RSS headquarters.
PM Modi will also visit Smruti Mandir in Reshimbagh to pay tributes to RSS founder Keshav Baliram Hedgewar on his birth anniversary.
This is the first time a sitting PM is visiting the Sangh headquarters at Nagpur’s Reshimbagh, where PM Modi will lay the foundation stone of the extension building of a hospital.
The meeting comes after a spell of speculation about tension in Sangh’s ties with the BJP leadership.
Political circles, however, consider the forthcoming interaction significant because of the timing, venue and the purpose of the PM’s visit to Nagpur.
It coincides with BJP’s preparations to elect a new national president, expected by the first week of April.
The saffron party is likely to hold its national council meeting in Bengaluru on April 18 to endorse the new president’s election.
RSS has always had a major say in the choice of the party chief.
That the meeting is happening in Nagpur where Sangh is headquartered and in the honour of Madhavrao Sadashivrao Golwalkar, ‘Guru ji’ to legions of Sangh swayamsevaks and sympathisers, has only invested the whole affair with even more significance.
PM Modi will participate in the foundation-laying ceremony of Madhav Netralaya, a state-of-the-art eye hospital and research institute, on Gudi Padwa, Marathi New Year.
PM Modi and Mohan Bhagwat’s last one-on-one meeting was on May 10, 2014, in Delhi, ahead of Lok Sabha polls.
They were slated to appear together again on April 27, 2023, for the inauguration of National Cancer Institute and Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan’s cultural centre in Koradi, 15km from Nagpur, but PM Modi’s visit was cancelled due to the Karnataka Assembly elections.
At the Sunday event, PM Modi and Mohan Bhagwat will be joined on stage by Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, Acharya Govind Giri Maharaj, Avadheshanand Maharaj and Nagpur’s Guardian Minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule.
PM Modi’s visit coincides with the preparations of the RSS centenary year celebrations, which begin on Vijayadashmi this October.
In Nagpur, PM Modi will visit Deekshabhoomi, where Dr. B.R. Ambedkar embraced Buddhism along with thousands of his followers in 1956.
BJP, ideologically mentored by the RSS, is currently in the process of holding organisational elections from the district to the national level.
J.P. Nadda, the incumbent BJP President, was inducted into the Union Cabinet by PM Modi in June 2024. He’s been on extension since, holding dual responsibilities.
PM Modi’s visit to Nagpur comes close on the heels of the Bengaluru meeting of the RSS Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha, the highest decision-making and policy formulation body of the saffron outfit, which passed a resolution expressing concerns over “Hindu persecution in Bangladesh”.
PM Modi has repeatedly spoken about the influence of the RSS on his life. In his recent podcast with YouTuber Lex Fridman, the Prime Minister said the teachings of Ramakrishna Mission, Swami Vivekananda, and the service-driven philosophy of the RSS played a crucial role in shaping him.
“More than anything, the RSS provides you with a clear direction toward what can truly be called a purpose in life. Secondly, the nation is everything, and serving the people is akin to serving God,” PM Modi told Lex Fridman in the podcast released earlier this month.
PM Modi was introduced to the RSS at the age of eight and became a full-time worker for the RSS in Gujarat in 1971 when he was 21.
IANS
