The change was ushered in today at Nagpur after RSS chief K.S. Sudarshan decided to go into retirement, Suresh Joshi aka Bhaiya Joshi was elected as General Secretary of RSS after pipping joint general secretary Suresh Soni to the post.
The retirement of 78 year old Sudershan and Bhagwat taking over the Sangh reins is expected to have a telling effect on the BJP also. While Sudershan and Soni were seen to be against BJP Prime Ministerial candidate L.K. Advani, Bhagwat is a supporter of Advani. In fact, Advani was an apprentice under Bhagwat's father when he was a Pracharak in Gujarat after crossing over from Pakistan after parition.
Bhagwat's taking over means that Advani's clout in the Sangh Parivar will increase significantly with his baiters taking a back seat. The obvious ramfication of this will be that all the saffron units will now go all out in support of the BJP in the coming elections with Bhagwat's word counting above Suresh Soni, the chief backer of Rajnath Singh, BJP President.
To put it in context, it was Sudershan who went out in the public desiring that Advani should hang his boots after the 2004 elections. Even in the present context, it was Suresh Soni's support for Rajnath that the stalemate between Arun Jaitely and party president's friend Sudanshu Mittal continues.
