Sanjay Joshi: The man who once shook BJP

Sanjay Joshi, the

man who resigned ahead of the National Executive meeting in Mumbai on Thursday, has been a man known for his reach among the party and rank and file of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (

). Popularly referred to as Sanjaybhai, Joshi is a mechanical engineer by profession and immensely fond of media attention. Although when it came to political activism, he was a quiet worker.

Joshi first wanted to contest election from Nagpur in 1990 but was not given a ticket. He later opted Gujarat and the RSS sent him to Ahmedabad as its pracharak.

Joshi was regarded a RSS man in the BJP, who always preferred a simple living. He was quite popular among his fellow workers as a moral person till the CD scandal occurred in 2005, when he to quit the party post. The scandal had embarrassed the BJP top brass then, including former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The silver jubilee celebrations of the BJP were overshadowed by the CD scam.

Joshi has also been known to be the arch-rival of Narendra Modi, who was also a pracharak in Gujarat once. He was always a critic of Modi's style of working as the Gujarat Chief Minister. Joshi disapproved the BJP deviating from the RSS philosophy and led a campaign to counter senior BJP leader LK Advani's efforts to start a debate over the role of Mohammad Ali Jinnah in India's movement for independence.

In 2007, ending all speculation about the status of Joshi, the RSS said he continued to be a sangh pracharak.

Reacting to reports that he had been stripped of the pracharak status, former RSS spokesperson Ram Madhav said no such decision had been taken. The statement was significant for Joshi, who had been brought to the BJP from the RSS, was dropped as the party's general secretary in a reshuffle of BJP office-bearers by the then party president Rajnath Singh.

OneIndia News