BJP President Amit Shah.
RSS general secretary Bhaiyyaji Joshi and joint general secretaries Krishna Gopal and Dattatreya Hosabale held a coordination meeting with BJP president Amit Shah on Tuesday, during which the Kashmir issue was reportedly discussed in detail. Besides other coordination issues, the three senior RSS leaders are believed to have discussed the issue of alleged political violence against RSS workers in Left Front-administered Kerala.
“While the Opposition has managed to ratchet up small incidents into big political controversies that become headlines. But a case of political violence at the behest of opposition parties in power in states does not manage to make national headline,” an RSS leader said after the meeting, summing up the Sangh’s outlook on the incidents of political violence in Kerala. The RSS functionaries briefed about the alleged political violence in Kerala claim that 14 of their workers have been killed since the Left Front government came to power last summer.
The CPI(M), too, alleges that many of its activists and local leaders have been killed and injured in attacks by BJP-RSS workers in the state. The Sangh, it is learnt, has decided to spread awareness about the alleged incidents of political violence in Kerala and West Bengal. For this purpose, the RSS expects the BJP to chip in.
A BJP functionary said, “We have not been able to de-hyphenate political violence — it always gets projected as violence and counter-violence, as against human rights violation by the party in power in Kerala.”
