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After revolting against RSS leadership, the organisation's Goa chief Subhash Velingkar on Friday kept up his attack on the BJP even as several Sangh activists resented his move.
With the RSS taking a tough stand against the rebels, Velingkar's supporters also toned down their protest, saying they have not rebelled against the Sangh but had only resigned from their posts, casting doubts if the parallel unit floated by him will be able to muster strength to take on the saffron force.
"It is not a rebellion. We will continue saluting the saffron flag. We will work under Sarsanghchalak. But we will be Goa prant," Raju Sukerkar, former North Goa head of Goa Unit of the sangh told PTI on Friday.
Sukerkar was among the leaders who had resigned from their posts after the RSS axed Velignkar as state unit chief, after his Bharatiya Bhasha Suraksha Manch, announced its intention to form a political outfit.
Sukerkar, a close aide of Velingkar and a BBSM campaigner, said the formal proposal seeking to form the Goa prant has been sent to the sangh headquarters in Nagpur.
"The detailed proposal has been drafted reasoning why the decision to detach from Konkan and form Goa prant by Velingkar," he said.
Sukerkar said they had not resigned from the sangh but only from the posts which they were holding.
Even as a large number of RSS workers and supporters, including some office bearers, have pledged support to Velingkar, many of the swayamsevaks appear to be averse to part ways with the Sangh.
"I am still with RSS with Nagpur as headquarters. You cannot have a separate RSS prant like this. I am not with the group which has done so," Datta Bhikaji Naik, a senior RSS leader in Goa, told PTI.
Naik said, in his individual capacity, he has backed Bharatiya Bhasha Suraksha Manch (BBSM), floated by Velingkar to campaign for primacy of regional languages as medium of instruction and as part of which he has taken on the BJP government in the state but was against splitting the RSS .
Ratnakar Lele, another senior functionary, said 80 per cent of the swayamsevaks would not go with the new prant.
Velingkar was sacked as the chief of RSS in Goa after he crossed swords with the BJP government over the medium of instruction issue with members of his outfit even showing black flags to party chief Amit Shah recently.
Velingkar, who claimed the support of hundreds of RSS workers, on Thursday asserted that the Sangh unit in the coastal state will function independently of the parent body, at least till the Assembly polls.
However, RSS was quick to debunk Velingkar's claims, saying none of its units can dissociate from the outfit and new office bearers for the state will be announced soon.
Goa Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar, with whom Velingkar has been at loggerheads over the government's continued support to English medium schools, declined to comment on the development in the saffron camp ahead of Assembly polls early next year.
"For the last two days, I have been repeatedly saying I would not like to comment on it (RSS action). It is their internal matter," Parsekar said.
He, however, said that "there cannot be a new prant in Goa". "In RSS, everything is decided by the central leadership," he added.
Meanwhile, Shiv Sena defended Velingkar, saying that he has done no crime by demanding the promotion of regional languages, which was one of the election promises of the BJP.
StateForest Minister and RSS swayamsewak Rajendra Arlekar said the developments pertaining to RSS, including sacking of Velingkar, could be the fallout of "misunderstanding", even as he termed them as a "transitional phase".