Allahabad:
BJP president Rajnath Singh is at the Kumbh mela today and will meet senior leaders of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad before a big meeting of priests or sants to be held this afternoon. His presence signals the BJP's acquiescence to a strategic shift back to Hindutva in the run up to the general elections 2014. The original Hindutva mascot, Narendra Modi, will be in Delhi addressing young students on emerging business models. (
Modi meets PM, will visit Delhi college SRCC)
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or RSS and its affiliates like the BJP and the VHP together call themselves the Sangh Parivar or family. At a family gathering last week, the RSS brought together the BJP and the VHP, estranged in recent years, to suggest a return to the Hindutva agenda to win back a traditional votebank. The BJP reportedly agreed, despite some top leaders demurring.
(Blog: Amid sadhus and chants, the search for political salvation at Kumbh)Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde's recent comment on "saffron terror" is said to have clinched it. The RSS has argued that Mr Shinde's comment, at an election strategy meeting of his party, the Congress, indicates an attempt at polarisation of votes by ruling party and an attack on Hindutva, which the BJP can use politically.
A sulking VHP is mollified. Senior VHP leader Ashok Singhal said, "For their own sake also they have to think about it because the Hindus have all these days been feeling that there is no political power behind them and if they want to support the Hindus of this country they have to take up the Hindu agenda in their manifesto."
A large poster of Lord Ram on the massive gate to the enclosure where the "margdarshak mandal" meet of about 250 sants will be held, leaves no doubt about what the focus of talks will be today; the VHP wants a new timeline decided for the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya. The decision on this today will be announced at a larger gathering of about two lakh sants, the dharam sansad, tomorrow.
As it has prepped for the meeting today, the VHP has also kept busy distributing thousands of pamphlets on the Ram temple and removing posters put up by supporters of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi suggesting that he be made the BJP's candidate for Prime Minister in 2014.
The VHP is clear that while Mr Modi "is a capable leader", the Kumbh meetings will not be used to endorse his name for the top job, though even a section of the head priests at the Kumbh favour Mr Modi.