In what is being seen as an emulation of sorts of BSP leader Mayawati’s politics, BJP is planning to install a statue or a bust of Jan Sangh leader Deendayal Upadhyay in all 683 districts of the country.
This is part of the Deendayal Centenary celebration being coordinated by the Culture Ministry for which a sum of one hundred crore rupees was allocated in the union budget earlier this year.
Deendayal Upadhyay was an RSS pracharak and founder member of BJP’s pre-emergency avatar- the Bhartiya Jan Sangh; and his treatise on Integral Humanism is considered one of the most powerful influences on BJP’s ideological moorings with the RSS. He died under mysterious circumstances during a train journey in 1968 and his body was recovered near Mughalsarai railway station near Varanasi.
It is expected that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will flag off the ambitious year-long centenary celebrations from Calicut, a day after the BJP national executive meeting for which the entire top BJP brass will travel to Kerala.
Though RSS is not directly involved in the government’s efforts to celebrate the centenary year, its affiliate, Deendayal Research Institute or DRI has been chosen as the nodal body to coordinate with the culture ministry. From the BJP, party general secretary Anil Jain will be in-charge for the event.
“The choice of venue is quite interesting and adds a historical perspective to the celebrations”; says a BJP leader closely associated with the event. “It was in the Calicut session of the Jan Sangh that Deendayalji was nominated as the president of the Bhartiya Jan Sangh," the BJP leader added.
A meeting to give final touches to the ambitious programme was held in Delhi earlier this week. RSS-deputed BJP general secretary (organisation) Ram Lal chaired this meet which was also attended by culture minister Dr Mahesh Sharma.
The BJP now in power at the Centre, with a majority of its own, is also using this opportunity to expand its base and political footprint to areas it has had very little influence. Cast in stone or metal, as it plans to take its icons to every nook and corner of the country, it seems to be following the well-trodden path of its political competition.
“Mayawati did the same thing as UP CM, when she installed statues of Dalit icons across the state,” said a leader aware of the developments.
Resources at hand are also a matter of concern. A back-of-the-envelope calculation shows more than half of the allocated Rs 100 crore would be utilised if government were to go ahead with the proposed plans to install a statue in all six hundred odd districts. That would leave very little for other programmes.
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