What Shiv Sena plans to achieve by proposing RSS chief’s name for president of India

In cricket, whenever a new spinner starts bowling, he is likely to get more wickets as he has unexpected turns and googlies in his kitty. But over the years, his tactics wither away as he is studied by opponents - they can play him easily and it is supposed to be the end of his career.

It looks like the Shiv Sena might go the same way.

Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut act of adding RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s name to the list of probable presidential nominees can be looked at in this way only. The party's gameplan is to deliberately throw a surprise name to corner the BJP.

This is nothing new. The Shiv Sena has always taken unexpected stands to put the BJP in a tight spot; former Sena chief Bal Thackeray too loved creating controversies and used them to boost his image and show that he didn’t shy away from contradicting himself.

The Shiv Sena has had a long-standing alliance with the BJP but Bal Thackeray never cared about keeping the responsibilities of an alliance partner. When the BJP finalised LK Advani’s name as PM candidate, Thackeray said that if Sharad Pawar was PM candidate he would rather support him as he is Marathi manoos (person).

And then in 2014, there was a U-turn on the Sena’s stand as they opposed Narendra Modi’s name as PM candidate and openly said it would be better if Sushma Swaraj or Advani were given a chance.

Even in the presidential elections, the Sena decided to support Pratibha Patil against the BJP nominee, taking the Marathi manoos position. But it conveniently changed its stand and later supported Pranab Mukherjee, embarrassing the BJP. It little cared about BJP’s resentment and threats of breaking the alliance.

Even now, it's not Uddhav Thackeray who has taken Bhagwat’s name as choice of nominee for president but Sanjay Raut, a party MP. So, if need be, the Sena can change its stand tomorrow since the final word or official stand is always that which is taken by the party chief.

Another surprise is about the Sena’s new-found love for the RSS. Right from its formation, when the Sena had a one-point agenda of Marathi pride to the 1980s, when Bal Thackeray brought Hindutva on the agenda, the party never liked the RSS and its swayamsevaks.

Bal Thackeray openly and proudly used to claim that his party's Hindutva was different from that of the RSS’s. His stand was more clear and direct than the hidden agenda or tactics the Sangh uses. Not only that, he used to join socialists in making fun of RSS swayamsevaks as "chaddiwale" (hinting at RSS’s khaki half-pant uniform for Sangh volunteers).

But things changed after his death in 2012. Bhagwat and Uddhav share a warm relationship; the RSS chief even visited Matoshree, Thackeray's residence in Mumbai, after the Sena chief's death to offer his condolences.

Not only that, Bhagwat seems to even have tried to keep the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance intact during the 2014 Assembly election, which the BJP was choosing to break. He often advised the BJP to have like-minded allies together, which kind of gave solace to the aggrieved Shiv Sena which had been complaining about not getting friendly treatment from the new BJP leadership under Modi.

So the new move of suggesting Bhagwat’s name for president is meant to embarrass the BJP as they know none from the party will oppose the name. Also, currently, the BJP is in a position to get its nominee elected without anybody’s support (especially the Shiv Sena), otherwise the Sena’s choice might have been taken into consideration.

Secondly, it has been RSS's stand to not take constitutional positions, especially the RSS's top leadership. So it is unlikely that Bhagwat would be interested in pushing his name forward. If he would have wanted to do that, it would surely not have been the Sena he would have chosen to suggest his name.

So it's the Sena’s old googly - it is trying to embarrass the BJP - and as BJP has spent many years trying to dodge such googlies, it knows well to leave the suggestion alone and not get into a row.

Also read: Who will be India’s next president?