Leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party and Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh met on Monday to discuss a need to build strong narratives to counter “divisive” political and social forces in a bid to put the saffron mobilisation going ahead of next year’s Lok Sabha polls among other things in New Delhi.
The meeting is being described as scheduled and routine. This year RSS organisations have planned their meetings from May 28-31 in Delhi.
The meeting of the Sangh, its affiliates, the BJP, and the government was chaired by RSS joint general secretary Krishna Gopal.
The BJP was represented by national president Amit Shah, party vice-president Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, general secretary Ram Madhav and secretary (organisation) Ram Lal.
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The government was represented by the six ministers — Rajyavardhan Rathore, JP Nadda, Maneka Gandhi, Mahesh Sharma, Prakash Javadekar and Thawarchand Gehlot.
Discussions on issues pertaining to the need to uniting society against caste-based challenges and issues such as criticism that the government had failed to protect Dalits and harboured a monochromatic vision also took place.
The RSS has said that its ongoing meeting with the BJP and union ministers is not a coordination meeting but an exercise to interchange the ideas.
“These are not Samanvay (coordination) meetings neither these are decision-making meetings,” RSS all-India prachar pramukh Arun Kumar said in a statement.
On completion of four years of the Narendra Modi dispensation, BJP chief Amit Shah along with six cabinet ministers met top functionaries of the RSS to deliberate on government programmes and policies, including the much-awaited education policy.
Kumar said the various RSS organisations working in the same field occasionally come together to share their experiments, experiences and observations.
To enable detailed discussions these organisations are grouped in various groups working in the same field, he said.
They are grouped as Seva (Service activities), Vaicharik (Intellectual arena), Arthik ( Economy), Shiksha (Education) , Samajik (social activities) etc.
(With agency inputs)