NEW DELHI: PM Narendra Modi and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat will share the stage in Nagpur on March 30, in what will mark their first public appearance together since the Ram Mandir consecration in Ayodhya on January 22 last year and their first joint event in Nagpur.
In a first for a sitting PM, Modi is also expected to visit Smruti Mandir in Reshimbagh to pay tributes to RSS founder Keshav Baliram Hedgewar on his birth anniversary. The meeting comes after a spell of speculation about tension in Sangh’s ties with the BJP leadership.
Political circles, however, consider the forthcoming interaction significant because of the timing, venue and the purpose of the PM’s visit to Nagpur. It coincides with BJP’s preparations to elect a new national president, expected by the first week of April. The party is likely to hold its national council meeting in Bengaluru on April 18 to endorse the new president’s election. RSS has always had a major say in the choice of the party chief.
That the meeting is happening in Nagpur where Sangh is headquartered and in the honour of Madhavrao Sadashivrao Golwalkar, ‘Guru ji’ to legions of Sangh swayamsevaks and sympathisers, has only invested the whole affair with even more significance.
Modi will participate in the foundation-laying ceremony of Madhav Netralaya, a state-of-the-art eye hospital and research institute, on Gudi Padwa, Marathi new year.
Modi and Bhagwat’s last one-on-one meeting was on May 10, 2014, in Delhi, ahead of Lok Sabha polls. They were slated to appear together again on April 27, 2023, for the inauguration of National Cancer Institute and Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan’s cultural centre in Koradi, 15km from Nagpur, but Modi’s visit was cancelled due to the Karnataka assembly elections.
Sources said security agencies and RSS-affiliated organisations have begun preparations, though no official confirmation has come from BJP or the Sangh. At the March 30 event, Modi and Bhagwat will be joined on stage by Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis, Union minister Nitin Gadkari, Acharya Govind Giri Maharaj, Avadheshanand Maharaj and Nagpur’s guardian minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule.
