JOIN USDays after his remark on a re-look at reservation sparked off a political storm, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s annual Vijayadashami address invoked Dalit icon B R Ambedkar, which came as a breather for the BJP that had distanced itself from his comment.
Bhagwat began his 55-minute speech at Nagpur on Thursday crediting Ambedkar for creating space in the Constitution to remove social and economic inequalities faced by the weaker sections which are in sizeable numbers and are politically decisive in poll-bound Bihar.
Recently, the RSS chief in an interview to its mouthpiece, Organiser and Panchajanya, had called for a review of the caste-based reservation on the grounds that it has been exploited merely for political purposes.
That interview had created an uproar forcing the BJP to distance itself from Bhagwat’s views.
The RSS later clarified that its chief did not mean that he wanted replace caste-based affirmative action with that on the basis of economic backwardness.
Interestingly, Bhagwat repeated his contention on reservation, arming the Opposition to dwarf the BJP’s position that they continue to uphold caste-based affirmative action.
The RSS chief in his annual address, keenly followed by BJP leaders for the message it conveys, did not rake up any controversial issues which has brought a sigh of relief for the ruling party at the Centre, party sources said.