After letting Chief Minister Narendra Modi humiliate senior leader Sanjay Joshi, Rashtriya Swayam Sangh has begun weeding its own pracharaks. Last week it divested senior leader Bhaskarrao Damle of office and on Thursday it removed Yasin Ajmerwala from the post of coordinator of Rashtrawadi Muslim Andolan.
Both of them are accused of being close to Modi’s fierce detractors, Joshi and Keshubhai Patel. While Damle had attended a meeting at Keshubhai’s residence, Ajmerwala, who was made the coordinator after 2002 riots, alleged conspiracy by BJP leaders Gani Qureshi and Sufi Mehboob Ali Saiyed for his fall.
As coordinator, Ajmerwala was assigned the responsibility of bringing Muslims to Modi’s Sadbhavana fast in Ahmedabad last year. Among the many that he ferried to the venue was Mehdi Hussain Saiyed from Kheda. The move boomeranged as the latter tried to make Modi wear a skull cap. Modi refused to wear it, kicking up a controversy.
Ajmerwala alleged that Qureshi and Saiyed lobbied to get him removed from the post by floating rumours that he would work against the party in the coming assembly election by raking up Modi’s refusal to wear the cap. “They are jealous of me. They began the propaganda that I am close to certain leaders who are supposedly critical of Modi.”
Incidentally, Ajmerwala is the general secretary of the BJP minority cell but is ignored during party meeting or activity.
He accused Saiyed of making the visuals of the skull cap incident available to the media to portray him in bad light. “It is true that I had invited Mehdi to the Sadbhavana fast, but I had no role in what happened there. I had recommended Sufi Saiyed’s name for the state Haj committee post and today he has conspired against me,” Ajmerwala said.
“I met Modi on a couple of occasions after that and he did not broach the issue. The issue did come up for discussion at a Sangh meeting at Pushkar 10 days ago and I explained my position. The incident is well behind the party and me. But Qureshi and Saiyed have used it to conspire against me,” he claimed.
