UNIT OF RSS VOLUNTEERS INVITED SANJAY JOSHI; STATE BJP LEADERS DISTANCED THEMSELVES FROM FUNCTION

Sanjay Joshi, grass root level workers of Gujrat BJP since 1988, was targeted by Modi’s wrath. In 2001, BJP central leadership removed Keshu Bhai Patel and allowed Narendra Modi become chief minister of Gujrat. Since then Joshi has been the focus of several Modi’s actions.

The whole story of the rift starts when Modi was shunted out after a revolt by Shankersinh Vaghela, the BJP leader, and BJP won in the subsequent assembly election in 1998. Joshi became the general secretary of BJP in Gujrat. It seems Modi felt that Sanjay Joshi was helpful in his expulsion from Gujrat, but truth is that was not the case. Joshi, meanwhile, had won hearts in the BJP and RSS, in Gujarat.

As for Joshi, it was the Mumbai executive of the party in December 2005, that saw him fall from grace and the power structure in the party, when a CD surfaced in the middle of the executive meeting, which showed him in a compromising position with a woman, but RSS knew that the CD was doctored and fabricated.

Joshi was forced to resign in May 2012 when Modi threatened to boycott the BJP national meet if he was not removed. Joshi was also removed from the BJP national executive to placate Modi. He soon quit all other party posts.

 Some BJP leaders in Delhi had faced the heat of party’s top leadership for greeting Joshi on his birthday in April last year.

In September last year a blood donation camp held in Varanasi where Mr Joshi had been invited, but the camp had to be cancelled following pressure from senior leaders who themselves had maintained distance from the event.

After the appearance of pro-Joshi posters in Kanpur, Lucknow, Ghaziabad and Delhi, it was the presence of a fairly large crowd at functions attended by Joshi in May 2015 that had alarmed the red bells ringing in the party leadership.

Anxiety prevails among senior leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Uttar Pradesh over the growing forays of senior party leader Sanjay Joshi into the state.

 A program on birth anniversary of Swami Vivekanand was organized by a group of RSS volunteers and BJP workers in Lucknow on Tuesday at Ramadheen Singh inter college Nirala Nagar. Mr Sanjay Joshi, sidelined BJP leader, was invited as a chief guest even as top BJP leaders in the state continue to maintain their distance from him.

RSS’s Lucknow Vibhag Sanghchalak Jai Krishn Sinha presided over the event organized by Deen Dayal Sewa Pratisthan, a unit of RSS volunteers.

Mr Joshi, addressing a seminar on ‘Nationalism and Indian Culture, Basics of culture equality’, said, “Let's speak ourselves, ‘we Indian' — we can reach the extent of equality.”

He further said, “We talk about nationalism, but the racial diversity in India is at the pit level. The voters during the polling prefer to vote the candidates of identical caste.”