Tying of rakhis and ideology lecture at RSS-BJP rakshabandhan tomorrow

MPs have been asked to be dressed in white kurta pajama along with the trademark round black caps for the function

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Members of Parliament, both from Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, all 321 of them, were busy Wednesday evening rummaging through their wardrobes to find round black toupees. The toupees are part of the prescribed uniform of white shirt and khaki shorts that Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) volunteers need to wear at all its events.

The BJP MPs, its 279 Lok Sabha and 42 Rajya Sabha, have been instructed to be at one such RSS function on Thursday morning, at parliamentary affairs minister M Venkaiah Naidu's residence on 30, Aurangzeb Road. The event will celebrate the festival of rakshabandhan where the MPs would tie rakhis or 'raksha sutra' as it is called within the Sangh Parivar on each others' wrists as a sign of brotherhood. RSS general secretary Bhaiyyaji Joshi will address the MPs on current affairs and Sangh's ideological tenets of cultural nationalism.

According to a WhatsApp message sent to all MPs, they have been asked to be dressed in white kurta pajama along with the trademark round black caps for the function. Joshi is number two in the RSS hierarchy after Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat. The two hour long event would start at 7am.

The meeting is said to be an effort to keep the dialogue between the BJP lawmakers and Sangh Parivar ongoing. Sangh Parivar sources said the event was an annual feature, one of six festivals that RSS marks every year, including guru dakshina to honour M S Golwalkar. But sources among BJP MPs said this year's function is being approached with much more seriousness than last several years.

The RSS doesn't want a repeat of the first National Democratic Alliance governments of 1998 to 2004, where it was felt that many MPs and ministers had deviated from Sangh's tenets of simple living, had become arrogant and adopted lavish lifestyles. This has been attributed as an important reason why the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government couldn't return to power in 2004 Lok Sabha elections.

Sources said the MPs would be served a south Indian breakfast. They will also take the Sangh's oath to defend the motherland. The lecture by a senior RSS leader would come a day before Prime Minister Narenda Modi's very first address to the nation from the Red Fort. It also comes in the wake RSS chief Bhagwat telling a gathering in Odisha on Sunday that BJP's massive mandate in the Lok Sabha elections was because people wanted change and that it wasn't the achievement of one or two individuals. Bhagwat made these comments barely a day after Modi told BJP's National Council meeting that Rajnath Singh and party president Amit Shah had fashioned the victory.

The BJP won 282 seats in the Lok Sabha elections. Narendra Modi, who won from two constituencies, has since resigned from his Vadodara constituency. Senior leader Gopinath Munde's seat is lying vacant after he passed away. Sumitra Mahajan, BJP MP from Madhya Pradesh, is now Speaker of the Lok Sabha.