RSS, BJP coordination meets back on table to ensure 3rd term for BJP govt

Lucknow: With UP elections just a year away, RSS and BJP have begun brainstorming sessions in the form of coordination meetings to ensure that everything goes smoothly at the hustings.The coordination meetings are not a new development and are being held with senior UP BJP functionaries, including CM Yogi Adityanath, since 2018. This time UP BJP chief Pankaj Chaudhary and BJP state organisation secretary Dharmpal are also part of the discussions.
They were held in 2018, a year before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, and then in 2021, a year before 2022 UP Assembly elections. BJP came up with an impressive show in both elections — winning 62 LS seats in UP in 2019 and 255 seats in 2022. It could be a coincidence, but such meetings were not held for the 2024 LS polls where the party's tally dropped sharply from 62 to 33 seats.On Thursday, Yogi Adityanath, who was in Noida for a public event, attended a coordination meeting with RSS functionaries in Ghaziabad. This was the fourth prant-level coordination meeting of this year. The CM is expected to attend similar meetings for the Kanpur-Bundelkhand region and Braj region. Before the West region coordination meeting on Thursday, Yogi had attended the meetings for Goraksh, Kashi and Awadh prants held earlier. These meetings at the region level are being held after a gap of five years for UP elections, an RSS insider said, attributing the gap to various reasons.These meetings are held at the RSS organisational structure of ‘prant' or regional levels, with each region comprising multiple districts. Analysts see these meetings as Sangh efforts to prevent a poor show by the BJP like in 2024 LS polls in UP.The idea behind such candid parleys is primarily to bridge the gap between govt and the people at the grassroots and ensure smooth coordination between govt and the BJP organisation at the lower levels before elections. In addition, these meetings send out a message that the RSS and its offshoots, including the BJP, are on the same page and all must focus on winning polls.Since such meetings are attended by office-bearers at the regional level, the feedback received by the CM as head of govt from RSS office-bearers and regional BJP units are direct and devoid of any censorship or filtration, if any, either by bureaucrats or Sangh functionaries.Such coordination meetings help govt understand the prevailing situation at the ground level while prant level office bearers get to know directly what govt is thinking on the requirements and suggestions received at their level, a senior RSS functionary told TOI.These meetings are often an extension of parleys among various ministers steered by RSS to exchange suggestions and understand what has been done on the Sangh agenda at the ministry levels. Such meetings clearly indicate the importance being accorded to the next year's UP Assembly polls by the RSS and its efforts to ensure that BJP govt gets a third straight term.The ongoing meetings at the regional level would be over in three to four days after which the kshetriya pracharaks and prant pracharaks would leave for All India pratinidhi sabha meeting of the RSS at Haryana from March 13-15 which is likely to put a stamp on restructuring of the RSS, the impact of which might be visible after the second annual meeting in Oct.