Bengaluru: In what may potentially create a matter to worry about for the Bharatiya Janata Party in the state, some senior leaders and workers of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) assembled here on Friday and launched a new party called ‘Janaspandana’.
File pic of Rama Bhat Urimajalu filing his nomination as a Lok Sabha candidate for the DK constituency as an independent a few years ago. On his right is the tnen-BJP MLC Anna Vinayachandra Kilangody and Shakuntala Shetty, now a Congress MLA
The occasion was the observance of Varahaswamy Jayanti and it was attended by a large number of senior RSS leaders and members, including the new party’s state president Narayana Sharma, Sangh sanchalak Vikram Singh, seva pramukh Gururaj, sharirik pramukh Sunil Kumar and many others.
Speakers trained their guns at the BJP, which they said, had, in pursuit of power, sacrificed the original tenets and principles on which it was founded. They said they were disillusioned with the party’s recent style of functioning and hence had decided to launch the new party.
Anna Vinayachandra Kilangody, a former MLC and a close associate of former Puttur MLA Kabbinahitlu Rama Bhat Urimajalu, who had floated the Swabhimani Vedike with him and present MLA Shakuntala Bhat in Puttur, was the most outspoken on the occasion.
With decades of association with the former Bharatiya Jan Sangh and its later version BJP for many decades behind him, Vinayachandra explained how the membership campaign was being held in those days.
The party leaders would go to house to house and only after convincing the residents of the principles and ideals that the party stood for would they be enlisted as members. But in the present days, all that was not necessary.
Speaking further, taking a dig at the modus operandi in membership mobilization, Vinayachandra said that by giving a mere blank call to a specified phone number, people could be registered as members of the BJP.
Those who managed to enlist a hundred persons this way were being designated as ‘active members’. It was only through such ways and means, the party had been deemed as the largest political party in the world, he said.
He added that any party could grow only with the growth of a firm leadership. But in the present days, many opportunists take to sycophancy to promote self-interests. If the same trend continued in the BJP, it would only end up as another Congress party, he cautioned.
Narayana Sharma, the state president of the newly-launched party, said that the motive of the party was to cleanse the corrupt political system. At present, all parties including the BJP and Congress, did not follow any principled way of functioning. Without any option, he and his associates were forced to float the new outfit, he said.
However, many of those present opined in private that a better name could have been chosen. Janaspandana is already an official name of a state government project and the name of a newspaper in Karnataka.
That apart, besides Congress, BJP, the Communist parties and JD(S), there are many splinter parties like Lok Satta, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Welfare Party of India and others. Many citizens to whom this correspondent spoke said that such a scenario would only result in further division of votes.
This may lead to parties mustering a total of about 30% of total votes occupying the saddle of power, with opportunistic alliances backing them up in the number game. This could only be a mockery of democracy, where the opinion of the majority is considered supreme, they said.
