Mohan Bhagwat, Yogi Adityanath hold closed-door meetings in Gorakhpur: Report
India News
RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath reportedly held two ‘closed-door’ meetings which lasted nearly 30 minutes each on Saturday.
The meeting took place in Adityanath's home turf, Gorakhpur, where the RSS chief has been staying for a four-day event that began on Thursday.
According to The Indian Express, Adityanath met Bhagwat first on Saturday afternoon at a school in the Campierganj area, where the latter attended a meeting and a Sangh event. Next, the chief minister visited the Saraswati Shishu Mandir in the city's Pakkibagh locality around 8:30 pm for another round of discussions with the RSS chief.
‘Not a routine visit’
Bhagwat's Gorakhpur trip so soon after the recently-concluded Lok Sabha elections is not ‘routine,’ a senior BJP leader, associated with the Sangh for three decades, said.
“Bhagwat was meant to hold discussions with Adityanath over the key reasons behind the debacle in Uttar Pradesh, where the BJP was seen to be in a strong position,” the BJP member stated.
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The saffron party won just 33 of the 80 seats in the country's most populous state, down from 71 in 2014 and 62 in 2019. The Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance won 43 seats, of which 37 went to the SP and six to the grand old party.
The BJP, which governs Uttar Pradesh and formed its third successive government at the Centre, had hoped to do well in the state owing to the Ram Mandir, which opened in Ayodhya on January 22.
Unlike its previous two terms, when it enjoyed an individual majority, the BJP, which won 240 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha – the Congress came second with 99 – needed support from its allies in the NDA, the coalition it leads, to form government. On June 9, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was sworn-in for his third consecutive term.
‘Several rounds of meetings held’
Bhagwat, after reaching Gorakhpur on Wednesday, has held multiple rounds of meetings with RSS office-bearers of the region, and received reports from them on the elections.
The Sangh is the ideological mentor of the BJP.
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