Search the Internet          Tips

Govindacharya may find it difficult to bounce back

Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi

Despite Bharatiya Janata Party ideologue K N Govindacharya's assertions to the contrary, his complete rehabilitation in either the party or the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh will be difficult as long as Atal Bihari Vajpayee is the prime minister, BJP sources indicated on Monday night.

"As long as Vajpayeeji is our prime minister, Govindacharya's complete rehabilitation in the party or the RSS will be difficult because it does not pay to cross swords with the former. He is respected universally," a BJP general secretary pointed out.

That was the reason why a lunch hosted by the chairman of the khadi and village industries board, Mahesh Sharma, was cancelled as Govindacharya's detractors within the sangh parivar applied pressure on the former, he said.

A few of Govindacharya's protagonists, however, believe that Sharma's lunch was cancelled because the sangh did not want Govindacharya to continue to be enmeshed in the controversy about his status as a RSS pracharak.

Govindacharya on Monday had told reporters that it was incorrect to say that he had been stripped of his pracharak status, contending that somebody appointed in capacity of a pracharak continued for life.

He also dismissed his alleged links with central minister Uma Bharti, claiming that there was nothing to it and that he respected her as a sant(holy person).

However, the cancellation of the lunch has indicated that the anti-Govindacharya lobby within the sangh parivar, which also includes Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pramod Mahajan, have started moves to sideline the BJP ideologue.

Other BJP sources pointed out that it was because of the 'patronage accorded' to Govindacharya by Union Home Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani that he has 'returned' to participate in the affairs of the parivar.

Significantly, January 14 -- the day Sharma was supposed to host his well-publicised lunch in which Govindacharya was also invited -- coincided with the BJP ideologue's purported bouncing back in the reckoning in the sangh's affairs.

But as pointed by the BJP general secretary, the anti-Govindacharya lobby, aided and abetted by Vajpayee's pronounced dislike for the ideologue, are moving to isolate the ideologue.

He said that Govindacharya had repeatedly offended the prime minister by criticising the government's economic policies.

"I don't think Govindacharya will recover his former pre-eminence, which he acquired soon after Vajpayeeji became the prime minister," the BJP general secretary pointed out.

Back to top

Tell us what you think of this report