RSS: Reached out to people in Lok Sabha poll, all must respect verdict

Aditi Tandon

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New Delhi, July 14

The ruling BJP’s ideological mentor RSS on Sunday said it worked on refining public opinion through intellectual meetings during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, like it does in all elections, and all parties must respect the verdict of the people who are supreme in a democracy.

Voters supreme

People are supreme in a democracy. All parties express their views to the people and they have given their verdict. We all should respect it. Sunil Ambekar, RSS leader

“The Sangh does not directly participate in elections. It engages in awareness and lokmat parishkar (refining public opinion) during every election. During the 2024 elections also, swayamsevaks worked on lokmat parishkar by organising small intellectual meetings. People are supreme in democracy. All political parties express their views to the people, and people have given their verdict. We all should respect people’s verdicts,” RSS all-India communications chief Sunil Ambekar said Sunday amid apprehensions of RSS-BJP tensions and talk that the Sangh workers did not reach out to the people during the crucial poll cycle.

This was the first official comment of RSS after the BJP ended up winning 240 Lok Sabha seats, far below the simple majority of 272 in the House of the People in the 2024 General Election amid indications that the Sangh refrained from the ground outreach it is famous for.

Ambekar was speaking after a three-day meeting of RSS regional coordinators in Ranchi and said the coordination meeting of RSS and its affiliates, including the BJP, will happen between August 31 and September 2 at Palakkad in Kerala. This will be the first meeting of RSS and top BJP brass after the LS poll results.

Meanwhile, the RSS coordinators’ meeting ended on Sunday with a pledge to expand Sangh shakhas to all blocks in rural areas and settlements in urban areas of the country by Vijayadashami 2025, when the RSS marks its centenary year.

“Of total 58,981 mandals (as per Sangh structure) in the country, daily Shakhas are run in 36,823 mandals. Similarly, of 23649 settlements (as per Sangh structure) in urban areas, the Sangh’s presence in visible in 14,645 settlements,” Ambekar said.

He dished out data to say that the RSS was getting popular among the youth. “In 2012, the Sangh started an online medium, ‘Join RSS’. Under this, every year, 1 to 1.25 lakh people join Sangh in its various activities through online medium. This year, until June, 66,529 people contacted and expressed their desire to join RSS,” Ambekar said.

To engage the youth, the RSS has commenced a new three-day early training plan in which one lakh youth took part last year — twice the number that participated in its primary training plan, which is of a longer duration.