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Narendra Modi’s visit to the RSS headquarters on Sunday will mark a first — no Prime Minister has ever done so.
While Maharashtra BJP president Chandrashekhar Bawankule insists there is nothing “political” about the visit to Nagpur, the PM’s trip is largely being seen as an attempt to put to rest the tensions between the BJP and RSS.
“The PM will lay the foundation stone of the Madhav Netralaya Premium Centre building and share the dais with (RSS chief) Mohan Bhagwat during this event. The PM will also visit the Hedgewar Smruti Mandir, which is the RSS headquarters. After this, he will go to Deekshabhoomi, where B R Ambedkar and his followers embraced Buddhism,” Bawankule told . The Hedgewar Smruti Mandir houses memorials dedicated to RSS founder Keshav Baliram Hedgewar and the organisation’s second sarsanghchalak M S Golwalkar. Atal Bihari Vajpayee had visited the memorials in 2007 while attending the centenary celebrations for Golwalkar, but he had stepped down as Prime Minister by then after the BJP lost the elections in 2004.
Modi last visited the RSS headquarters in September 2012, when he was the Gujarat Chief Minister, to attend the funeral of late RSS chief K S Sudershan. Again in July 2013, still a CM but already the PM candidate, Modi had visited the headquarters for a meeting. After the BJP got a thumping majority in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and Modi became the PM for the first time, it was Bhagwat who called on him in Delhi. In public, the two have shared various spaces together, including the Ayodhya Ram temple inauguration ceremony in January last year.
What makes Modi’s Sunday visit significant is the tensions seen in the BJP’s relationship with the Sangh before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, with BJP chief J P Nadda’s interview to The Indian Express saying the party no longer required hand-holding by the RSS adding to them. However, after the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, where the BJP was seen to have suffered because of the RSS keeping its distance, the two have ensured efforts to bridge the gap.
