Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the RSS headquarters last month has so far not been able to break the ice between the Sangh and the BJP for a consensus over the next party president, sources said.

Modi had visited the RSS headquarters in Nagpur on March 30, the first during his nearly 11 years as Prime Minister. The outreach was aimed at mending bridges with Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat and securing his sanction for a new BJP president of Modi’s choice.

Nine days since the visit, the RSS leadership has refused to endorse the names proposed by the BJP, remaining firm that the next party chief should be a “strong organisational leader” and not a “rubber stamp”, the insiders said.

The RSS is not willing to extend a free pass anymore to the Modi-Amit Shah
duopoly.

The duopoly has lorded over the party organisation and the government’s affairs since 2014. The Sangh feels that the kind of personality domination the BJP had seen under Modi would erode organisational strength, theinsiders said.

They said that since Modi’s Nagpur visit, the BJP has forwarded several names, including those of some senior ministers in the central government, but it has failed to sway the RSS leadership.

Modi had lavished praise on the RSS during his visit and described the ideological parent as the “akshay vat” or eternal protector of India’s “immortal culture”. The bonhomie between Modi and Bhagwat, with the two seen talking and laughing, had stoked hope among BJP leaders that the name of the next party chief would be finalised soon.

“Several names have been discussed, but none has been finalised yet. We are, however, hopeful that the issue will be resolved soon,” an RSS leader said.

The lack of consensus has inordinately delayed the election of a new BJP chief. J.P. Nadda, the current party president, has been on extension since his term expired in January last year. Nadda has been doubling as health minister in the Modi government and the BJP boss, going against the party’s one-person-one-post principle.

“We were confident of getting a new party chief in the first week of April but the way things are going, it seems it will drag till the month’s end,” a BJP leader said, pointing out that factional feud has also delayed the election of new BJP presidents in key states.

The district organisational elections in Uttar Pradesh, Bengal and Madhya Pradesh are long over but the party has not been able to elect state presidents.

In Uttar Pradesh, a tussle between factions loyal to home minister Shah and chief minister Yogi Adityanath is believed to be the reason behind the stalemate. Similar factional fights have delayed the choice of state party chief in the other two states.

The RSS’s firm stand has also led to an impasse in these three states along with a few others, the sources said. The RSS has insisted that state BJP chiefs should be leaders devoted to the organisation’s ideology and not turncoats who migrated to the party during the Modi years.