RSS not BJP's remote control, says Bhagwat

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat on Thursday rejected the suggestion was the organisation exercised "remote control" over the Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA government at the Centre and said the Narendra Modi dispensation was initiating some good changes.

"RSS is not a remote control... The change has brought new hopes from the government and it needs public support to live up to the expectations," he said.

His remarks came in the backdrop of Congress' charge that Modi was being dictated by the Sangh, the "most unaccountable remote control".

Addressing the concluding function of the third year training camp of RSS pracharaks at the Reshimbagh ground in Nagpur, Bhagwat said though the new government was only 15-20 days old, it had started sending a message of good governance and fulfilment of promises.

People had reposed faith in the new government and the leadership was giving sufficient indications of moving towards its goal right in the initial stage, he said.

Using BJP's popular catch-phrase "Acche din aaye hai" (good days have arrived), Bhagwat said the opportunities must not be squandered.

He said it was a coincidence that the calendar of August 1947 and May 2014 were identical.

"Unfortunately, we wasted the opportunities of nation-building post-Independence," he said.

The RSS, which is a disciplined organisation, only followed the diktat of the Election Commission in asking the electorate to exercise the franchise in the elections, Bhagwat claimed.

The RSS supremo said there was a need to create "conducive environment" for helping the new government to work in a right way. The government must function in a transparent manner, he said.

Spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, who attended the function as a guest, criticised in his speech the ruckus in

Parliament and state legislatures, which he blamed on lack of discipline and affection for each other and the love for the country.

He also denounced drug abuse, saying that the countrymen were following the bad legacy of the British.