The arrest of two people, allegedly associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), in connection with the Ajmer blast case appears to have had a cascading effect within the organisation. Embarrassed by these arrests, the organisation has carried out a purge of a sort, removing two activists from Orissa, one from Jharkhand and one from Madhya Pradesh for alleged links with Hindu extremist outfits as late as last week.
The senior leadership of the RSS and BJP went into a huddle on Tuesday in Delhi, discussing how best to minimise damage from these incidents and how to combat the fall-out of these events. BJP leaders Arun Jaitley, Ananth Kumar, and Rajnath Singh and the RSS functionary in the BJP, Ram Lal, met with senior RSS pracharaks late on Tuesday.
?The news of ?Hindu terror? is very disturbing, since the RSS has suffered when militant strains have taken over, as it happened in 1948 with the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. The RSS was banned and is still not able to counter the stain of the Mahatma?s murder,? said a top source in the BJP. When reports of ?Hindu terror? first came around after Special Task Force chief Hemant Karkare arrested Sadhvi Pragya and members of Abhinav Bharat in the Malegaon case, the RSS and BJP had taken an attacking position. They had attacked Karkare?s integrity as a policeman as well. But now, with more and more evidence pointing to RSS affiliates? involvement in other acts of terror, the organisation feels it has to take action.
The BJP leadership?often placed in a publicly embarrassing position because of revelations like the arrest of Sadhvi Pragya in the Malegaon blast case?had been urging the RSS to comprehensively purge the organisation of these elements. ?There are certain elements who lend themselves to such activities. They should be removed. The RSS holds the same position,? said a leader.
?The problem lies with the fact that the RSS has grown over the years and so have some of the affiliate organisations, which preach Hindutva, but keep the exact nature of their activities secret. Some of their public postures are the same as the RSS, but that does not mean that the organisation condones the violence,? said the source.