Eye to 2012 UP polls, RSS backs Anna stir

As the Congress looked for a “foreign hand” behind the Anna Hazare agitation, Hindu outfits came out in open support of the anti-corruption crusader. The VHP gave a clarion call to its followers and “all countrymen” to join the Anna movement, while RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat also threw his weight behind Mr Hazare, making it clear that his outfit “supports the fast”.
The editor of the RSS mouthpiece Organiser, R. Balakrishnan, said while there was no “official mobilisation in Anna’s favour”, clarified that swayamsevaks who support the movement against corruption “are free to join it”.
Sources said that there was a widespread feeling among the swayamsevaks that “it was time to rise against corruption, and take on the government with Anna as a mascot”. While it was officially denied, sources said there had been a series of meetings among various Sangh Parivar outfits to discuss ways in which they could extend support to this “mass movement”. Posters of Bharat Mata and the RSS map of “Akhand Bharat” could be seen at a number of the protest sites.
With the state elections in Uttar Pradesh fast approaching, the Hazare movement against the government “could not have come at a better time” for the BJP. Politically, neither the BJP nor the Sangh are in a mood to give up the chance to “put the UPA on the mat”, sources said. BJP spin doctors are considering a two-pronged plant for the UPA polls — corruption and Ram Mandir, a senior BJP leader said.
With Sangh members constituting the core BJP support base, the swayamsevaks are being prepared to launch a “door-to-door campaign in UP against the government, with the Anna agitation as its main plank”, sources said. The RSS website for shakhas (www.sanghparivar.org [1]) is filled with messages of support for Mr Hazare, and swayamsevaks have been joining in hordes to support the “second kranti (revolution),” a RSS leader said.
VHP chief Ashok Singhal said he felt Mr Hazare’s arrest was like the “murder of democracy”, which showed the government’s “sheer disrespect for people’s feelings”. Mr Singhal said the government was “intoxicated by the lust for power and corruption”. Echoing Mr L.K. Advani’s line, Mr Singhal said: “This reminds us of the days of the Emergency in 1975.”