Clamour for Sanjay Joshi’s return raises suspicion

NAGPUR: Breaking away from his political exile, a one-time BJP strongman and ex-general secretary Sanjay Joshi returned to active networking of cadres and meeting party men. A bunch of local leaders received him at the airport as he landed here by a Delhi flight at noon. Later, he proceeded by road to Seoni and Chhindwara in neighbouring Madhya Pradesh where he visited party offices and interacted with party workers, pitching for his rehabilitation in the party.
The sustained drumming up of support for the sidelined Joshi that began early this month in several cities, found its echo in Nagpur on Wednesday. Hoardings and posters were put up on the route from airport to the Civil Lines in his support. All this has raised a question as to who is really behind this campaign. That party men are ready to defy a ‘keep away from Joshi’ diktat has also come as a surprise to many.
Scores of posters and hoardings came up suddenly as Joshi landed in the city. They were put up by ‘BJP Mitra Parivar’ and ‘Sanjay Joshi Mitra Parivar’. Around 50 BJP flag-waving crowd that gathered to receive him were mostly his friends from the RSS days. “They could be party workers who are doing it on their own. The party has nothing do with this campaign. I am not even aware of the posters and who put them up,” claimed city BJP president Krishna Khopde.
“I am a BJP worker and will remain with the BJP. Narendra Modi is my leader,” was the only remark Joshi made at the airport while he sought to dissociate from the poster war started in his support.
It all started in New Delhi with a hoarding erected just outside the house of BJP national President Amit Shah on April 6 greeting Joshi on his 53rd birthday. Similar posters also sprang up in Mumbai, Lucknow and Nagpur. The ‘poster war’ was directed towards prime minister Narendra Modi and his trusted lieutenant Shah for keeping Joshi away from party work. They carried pictures of Modi, Shah, and Joshi. Taking a dig at the Modi government’s slogan of “Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas,” they asked why Joshi was not being taken along. Taking strong action, the BJP has issued show-cause notices to three MPs whose pictures appeared in hoardings greeting Joshi.
With the campaign now surfacing with vigour in Nagpur, the needle of suspicion has turned towards some prominent city leaders, including Union transport minister Nitin Gadkari. In 2005, a sleaze CD depicting Joshi went viral and with adverse media attention an embarrassed Joshi was forced to resign from the party general secretary post.
Notably, it was Gadkari as party national president in 2012 who rehabilitated Joshi giving him crucial work of chief coordinator for assembly election in UP that year. Political observers believe such visible campaign for out-of-favour Joshi would not be possible without support of top leaders and the RSS that seems desperate to cut Modi and Shah to size after Delhi state election debacle.
Who is Sanjay Joshi?
An engineering graduate from VNIT, Sanjay Joshi became RSS full-time pracharak in early 1980s. In late 1980s, he was sent to Ahmedabad to work for the BJP. For a few years, he was on good terms with Narendra Modi. He then shifted allegiance to Modi’s bête noire Keshubhai Patel. For almost a decade after that, he ruled Gujarat by proxy with Patel as chief minister, leveraging his proximity to RSS leadership in Nagpur to keep Modi out of the state for much of the 1990s.
In 2001, when Modi returned to Gandhinagar as chief minister, RSS shifted Joshi to Delhi, giving him the critical position of BJP general secretary in charge of the organization. Joshi was forced to resign in 2005 after a sleaze CD of his went viral. Though the video was later found to be fake, Joshi remained persona non grata until he was rehabilitated as chief coordinator for the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections in 2012 by Nitin Gadkari, the BJP president at the time.
The Modi-Joshi acrimony became national news when Modi as Gujarat chief minister threatened to boycott the BJP’s national executive being held in Mumbai that year. He told the then party chief Gadkari he would attend only if Joshi was told to leave the venue and the city. Ever since, Joshi has remained in obscurity, holding no post either in the BJP or in RSS. Party insiders admit his popularity has soared among the BJP’s lower-level leaders and cadres in the Hindi belt over the past few months. He continues to enjoy a good rapport with many RSS leaders and pracharaks across the country.