RSS to review centenary preparations, pass a resolution on Ram temple

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) will hold a three-day session of its top decision-making body, the Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha, in Nagpur to discuss how the organisation could ramp up its ‘shakhas’.

The Sangh plans to increase the number of ‘shakhas’ from the current 68,000 to 100,000 during its centenary year in 2025.

The meeting will discuss issues prevailing in the country and pass a resolution on the Ram temple, said its all-India publicity head Sunil Ambekar on Wednesday. The RSS is the ideological parent of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The meeting, from March 15 to 17, will be held in Nagpur's Reshim Bagh, headquarters of the RSS, after six years. A total of 1,529 representatives from 32 RSS-affiliated organisations will likely attend the meeting.

The RSS will complete the centenary of its founding on Vijayadashami in 2025, which will fall on October 2. The organisation dates its founding to the Vijayadashami day in 1925.

During the three-day programme, Ambekar said, a resolution on how the “positive atmosphere” created after the consecration of the Ram temple can be taken forward will be passed.

 

The Sangh will also release a statement to celebrate the tercentenary of 18th-century ruler Ahilyabai Holkar, which will be observed between May 2024 and April 2025, the RSS said.

Holkar is known to have contributed to the construction of several temples and donated to temples in Varanasi, Gaya, Somnath, Ayodhya, Mathura, and other pilgrimage centres.

The election to pick members of the Sangh's 'Akhil Bhartiya Karyakarni Mandal' (national executive) and its 'sar karyawah' (general secretary) will be held during the meeting, he said.

BJP president J P Nadda, the heads and organising secretaries of three dozen Sangh outfits and other RSS-affiliated organisations will participate in the Pratinidhi Sabha, Ambekar said.