RSS missive to cadres: Vote for Hindu agenda

New Delhi: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has appealed to cadres to vote for parties and candidates that support the Hindu nationalist agenda, including abolition of special status for Jammu and Kashmir and construction of a Ram temple at Ayodhya - seen as an endorsement of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) manifesto.

The BJP has promised to abolish Article 370 of the constitution that gives special status to Jammu and Kashmir and build a temple at Ayodhya on the site of the demolished Babri mosque in its poll manifesto.

"Unless politicians who understand and appreciate nationalist issues like the Kashmiri Hindus' safe return to the valley, abolishing Article 370 and ensuring the Ram temple at Ayodhya, are elected, society won't see the changes it aspires for," RSS' newly-appointed general secretary Suresh Joshi said in his interview to Tarun Vijay, director, Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee Research Foundation, a think tank affiliated to the BJP.

"This is an attempt to build pressure on all those parties and candidates who have put issues concerning Hindus on the back burner while trying to appease the other sections of society," a senior RSS functionary said.

Interestingly, a section of BJP leaders see this appeal as the RSS' attempt to ensure that the BJP does not sway from the Hindu agenda under the pressure of electoral politics.

The RSS cadres should "ensure hundred percent polling and create a pressure on Hindu issues using fully the rights the constitution has given", Joshi said.

Joshi also said there is a "wave of awakening among the voters and surely a pressure has to be built on Hindutva related issues, using the rights the constitution has provided".

"It's unfortunate that political parties with minority votes, often less than 30 percent, too form the government. If we have to change this situation, we will have to ensure that people vote in large numbers," he added.

The RSS general secretary said though the outfit is not in favour of making a law to punish those who do not vote but it wants "that people should feel self inspired to go to the polls as a sacred citizenship duty".