RSS Prant Pracharak Baithak marks strategic reboot for NDA coalition times

BEING CONVENED IN DELHI

- SIMONTINI BHATTACHARJEE

NEW DELHI: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's (RSS) Prant Pracharak Baithak, the once-a-year conference of its provincial organisers, which started on Friday, being convened in the national capital this time, has an infrequent political significance.

Apart from its organisational routine, the timing, location, and ambience of this year's meeting give it a broader importance that transcends the Sangh's intra-organisational deliberations.

At a moment when the politics of the country has experienced a quiet but significant shift after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, this meeting will have no choice but to dictate the pace for not only the RSS's intra-organisation priorities but also the trajectory of the ruling party's political agenda for the coming months.

The RSS, widely regarded as the ideological fountainhead of the BJP, organises these three-day annual meetings as a way to critique its organisational activities, share ground-level feedback, and chart a wide-ranging socio-cultural agenda for its cadres. But this time around, the stakes are much higher.

The 2024 general election saw the BJP becoming the single largest party but, importantly, without a majority in its own right. Compressed to rely on NDA coalition partners, the BJP is now in a political situation that requires accommodation, negotiation, and a rededication to consensus politics.

In this new context, advice and strategy developed at the Prant Pracharak Baithak might directly influence how the BJP responds to its new reality.

The choice to conduct this year's meet in Delhi, the epicentre of the country's political establishment, is no accident. It is generally in different regions of the country that such meets are conducted, with focus on organisational activity in the region.