Contrary to what its chief Mohan Bhagwat has been claiming, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is in full control of the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP). The way the RSS has leaned on the BJP leaders to select the next president amply proves the point I am making.

With the crisis in the BJP over leadership change seems to be coming to an end, as promised in the previous posts, we bring you some more exclusive details of the raging behind-the-scenes battle over the leadership issue in the ‘party with a difference’.

The succession war within the Bhartiya Janata Party has intensified as senior leaders are questioning the party’s decision to reward those who should have taken the responsibility for the humiliating defeat in the just concluded Lok Sabha polls.

After Jaswant Singh, another former foreign minister and senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha wrote a letter to the BJP president and blamed the top leadership for ignoring grassroots leaders like him.

Tired of the escalating infighting in the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) over the leadership issue, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has decided to take the matter of deciding the next Leader of Opposition (LOP) into its own hands.

According to sources, the Sangh has formed a committee under the leadership of its senior leader Madan Das Devi to select L K Advani’s successor. Other RSS leaders who are in the committee include Shrikant Joshi, Madhubhai, Suresh Soni, and Indresh Kumar.

The world, including India, maybe facing a severe economic crisis but it seems that the Indian political parties are immune to the global economic slowdown. According to a recently released survey of Centre for Media Studies, around Rs 10,000 crores (USD 2 billion) will be spent on Lok Sabha Polls 2009. This does not include the cost of conducting assembly polls in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa.

What is surprising here is that the amount to be spent (USD 2 billion) is more than what US President Barack Obama and other presidential candidates spent on their campaigns.