Everything is not perfectly alright within the Sangh Parivar over the way the Delhi unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party is responding to the cases emerging after the huge surge in corona virus.
The issue came up after the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s Delhi state executive member, Rajiv Tuli, hit out at the Delhi unit of the BJP for their “virtual absence” in public during the current Covid surge that has wreaked havoc in the national capital.
He tweeted in Hindi: “There is fire everywhere in Delhi, has any Dilli wala seen BJP Delhi?”
“Where is BJP4Delhi? Or is the state body dissolved?” wrote Tuli, the former prant prachar pramukh of Delhi unit of the RSS. He did not respond to calls and messages seeking comment.
When the Indian Express contacted Delhi BJP president Adesh Gupta, he said he does not know Tuli nor is he aware of his tweets. General Secretary of BJP’s Delhi unit, Harsh Malhotra, said he would not want to comment on Tuli’s remarks and added: “Since April 21, three helpline numbers are running 24×7. They are doing two kinds of work — one is a doctor on call in which a panel of doctors looks after patients on the phone and second is arranging food for patients and their families.”
Tuli’s tweet, according to the Indian Express, betrays a growing impatience and disquiet in the Sangh Parivar over the handling of the pandemic by the government and the sense of helplessness. “Even in Delhi, we have not been visible helping out as an organisation…the Delhi High Court has done more to hold the government to account than we have,” said a BJP leader who endorsed Tuli’s remarks.
Another senior BJP leader acknowledged there could have been better coordination within the Delhi BJP since there are MPs and their teams and youth wing leaders helping people, but not as a cohesive unit.
Incidentally, this is not the first time in the recent past that the RSS and BJP have come under attack from within. For example, when the upscale colonies of Bihar’s capital Patna were waterlogged for over a fortnight in Sep-Oct 2019, the RSS volunteers were conspicuous by their absence.
This was so when the Patna office of the RSS was itself submerged in chest deep water.
It was left up to the former Madhepura MP, Pappu Yadav, and other social and religious outfits to swing into action. They even rescued the then deputy chief minister of Bihar, Sushil Kumar Modi, from his home. The latter himself has an RSS background.
