Did the RSS slam the BJP in print?

Is all not well between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh?

Following an article that featured in the RSS mouthpiece, which seemed to be criticising the saffron party for failing to keep with the times, Prafulla Ketkar, the editor of the ‘Organiser’ said that it was not the case as was being projected by the media.

In the latest issue, the magazine looked into the reasons for BJP’s rout in Delhi at the hands of Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party. In a cover story titled ‘Landslide Victory, Uphill Task’, RSS makes the hypothesis that AAP thrashing was mainly due to the party cornering all Congress and BSP votes, but it also castigates BJP for making strategic mistakes. 

However, on Tuesday, Ketkar said that the story was on the Aam Aadmi Party not on BJP.  He also claimed the article was an analysis of the recent Delhi elections in which the AAP emerged victorious.

“About the Delhi elections, there are various opinions, various perceptions, and various analyses that are being done. The Organiser just reviewed that. This piece is nothing but an election analysis and what are the reasons people are talking about this debate,” he added.

Ketkar alleged that mainstream media was curbing the autonomy of Organiser as an independent voice of nation.

“In an attempt to present every story, every issue as a tussle between the BJP and the RSS, mainstream media is basically curbing the autonomy of the Organiser as an independent voice of the nation,” he said.

“It has become the media’s paid job to bring some stories about the relationship between the RSS and the BJP simply because those stories are more sellable. Mainstream media should be very careful about citing and quoting the Organiser. We believe that it is our journalistic and as a nationalist media our duty to present the real picture. But whenever we do that, if it is misquoted and misrepresented as an RSS point of view, it is going to hamper the credibility of media who is quoting us,” he added.

An article in the RSS mouthpiece had earlier said the BJP was not “on a comfortable ground at present” in Delhi, and that the party had inducted Kiran Bedi and projected her as a candidate for chief minister after receiving an “adverse feedback from field against the Delhi BJP”.