RSS prevails on Jaitley

The BJP’s parent organisation, the RSS, seems to have sided with party chief Rajnath Singh. On Thursday, party general secretary Arun Jaitley drove to Singh’s house to finalise candidates for four states, including Bihar and Delhi, while “tentwallah” Sudhanshu Mittal inaugurated BJP’s election “war room” in a Guwahati hotel.

Jaitley was boycotting the party election committee meetings to protest Mittal’s appointment as co-convener of the northeast.

The meeting Rajnath chaired on Thursday did not go Jaitley’s way. The ticket for New Delhi went to Vijay Goel. Jaitley was reportedly opposed to Goel’s candidature from this seat. In Bihar, the Darbhanga seat went to Kirti Azad; Jaitley’s lobby was pushing for another candidate. The party had earlier authorised Rajnath to take a final call on candidates.

Jaitley’s climbdown did not surprise anybody. The Sangh Parivar does not take kindly to challenges to authority. The clout of RSS over BJP is established: even LK Advani had to step down on RSS orders following his Jinnah remark. It is, however, a mark of Jaitley’s clout that he got away without any action taken against him.

But the Jaitley camp said his going to Singh’s house did not denote any climbdown. “It isn’t that the issue has been resolved or that Jaitleyji has relented. He has been discharging his responsibilities and hence when he was required for finalising tickets, he went,” said a leader.

Jaitley was with Singh for about an hour. He did not speak to the media outside Singh’s house. Sources said the Mittal issue did not figure at the meeting. Jaitley has said he will not attend election committee meetings till Mittal is removed. Singh has ruled that out.