NEW DELHI: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) on Saturday saw a change of guard with Dattatreya Hosabale being elected as its ‘Sarkaryavah’.
The Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha of RSS elected Hosabale as its ‘Sarkaryavah’ or general secretary.
Speculation were rife that Bhaiyyaji Joshi may step down as the ‘Sarkaryavaha’ of RSS on the second day of the Sangh’s triennial that began in Bengaluru on Friday, its first such meet outside Nagpur.
Hosabale will be RSS general secretary for three years.
Dattatreya belongs to Hosabale village in Karnataka’s Shivamogga district and joined RSS in 1968 and then the student organization Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) in 1972.
He was imprisoned for more than a year under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) during emergency imposed by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
On Friday, the RSS said anti-national and anti-social forces were trying to foil efforts for a solution to the ongoing farmers’ agitation against three central farm laws.
“The prolonged protests are apparently being aimed at creating an environment of disturbance and instability in the country for political gain,” the RSS said in its annual report of 2020-21 released on the first day of the two-day triennial meeting of Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha (ABPS), the RSS’s highest decision-making body.
It’s the RSS’s first official statement since the agitation broke out late last year.