The Sabrimala protest was merely a trial. The Sabrimala agitation by the BJP had sought to defy the court verdict that ended the evil custom of treating women, within the menstrual cycle period, as impure and untouchable, and not allowed to enter the Ayappa temple. Now the Sangh has sought to move a step forward and ignore the Supreme Court. It indicated to have run out of its patience and would not wait for its verdict. Instead it was ready to go ahead with construction of the temple. Ram Madhav, not as the spokes person of the Sangh but as general secretary of the ruling party has given his opinion to ignore the judiciary.

The Sangh maintained a low profile over the Ram temple issue for four and half years of the Namo regime. On the eve of the Republic Day in 2015 when the Prime Minister Narendra Modi was attending to the guest of honour, the President of America Barak Obama for the Republic Day parade, the Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat was restating the cause of the 2014 verdict by suggesting it was a verdict for the Ram temple. Eight months later the general body of the Sangh, Pratinidhi Sabha adopted the resolution urging the NaMo government to initiate actions for construction of the temple.

Yet the Prime Minister Narendra Modi not only maintained silence but did not respond with any action either for construction, expedite the proceedings by the judiciary or even visit the Nagpur establishment or even seek to meet Bhagwat at the Jhandenwala office or elsewhere. In fact NaMo had not sought to pay visit to the Nagpur establishment even as the Gujarat chief minister. He bore the brunt of resistance by the senior party leader Lal Krishna Advani to hand over the lead in the campaign for the party in 2014 elections. Soon after he was nominated to lead the BJP, NaMo had announced his priority for toilets to the temple.

In January 2014, Narendra Modi had unfolded his agenda of playing to aspirations of economic betterment by young generation and not pander to the cravings of the Hindu Rashtra by the older generation without a word of disapproval from the Sangh Parivar. Bhagwat even went along the NaMo campaign theme of keeping the low profile for the party and project his personality alone. Perhaps he did concede that the controversial agenda had failed to win a clear verdict in six successive elections and so he was forced to drift along with NaMo to generate a new hope and expectation.

NaMo performed a miracle and drew attention of most developed countries. The leaders of different developed countries appeared to be competing to rope in India through NaMo. As he was striving to rope in big industrialists around the world to invest in India not only their capital but also their production units, the Sangh unleashed its resistance to changes that NaMo sought to introduce by rapid growth. The Sangh shops were activated to oppose his reforms for easier acquisition of land for new industrial ventures. NaMo was forced not only to slow down but also to shift his attention from rapid economic growth. His tone and tune underwent a drastic change after his defeat in the Bihar campaign. The surprise was that fight did not come to the front. Instead NaMo caved in but without shifting his priorities.

The varied opinions about the utility and achievements of demonetisation do not include the politics involved in it. It was obvious that the severe economic step would cause maximum hardship to the middle class but neither rich nor poor would be affected outside the urban sector. The class that underwent the hardship contains the maximum number in the ardent vote bank for the BJP. Was the step taken as his preparation to shift his vote base? He yielded to demands to cease efforts to improve relations with Pakistan and had even undertaken the limited offensive of surgical strike to eliminate terrorist camps in the occupied Kashmir territory held illegally by Pakistan. The target was carefully chosen so as not to be the cause for full scale escalation of hostilities. But it provided for the first time a cause for celebrations to the BJP.

His style of functioning had not only reduced political stature and importance of senior party leaders but also denied opportunity to members of parliament of the party to consolidate their political base by seeking redress to individual cases and specific issues of their constituencies. He had consistently avoided sharing public political platform with any of party leaders or chief ministers except the Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar.

His one man rule had turned him into a huge tree. Under its shadow, nothing could grow inside the party. Surprisingly nothing grew outside the party even to make him a towering political personality that cannot be easily demolished. The intelligentsia inside and outside has come to a firm belief that no personality can defeat him. But the Sangh chief is now seeking to reduce his personality by seeking him to reverse his priorities to the tune of the BJP agenda. The intensity of the Ram temple euphoria is a part of that campaign to bring him to a position where he would subordinate himself to the Sangh chief if he wanted the full backing of the Sangh machinery in the next election. The outcome of the current tussle would largely depend on NaMo whether he wanted to be a dwarf or remain as a giant political personality. None of participants in the dance of power politics behind the curtain would admit but it is there for everyone to see in responses through words or with silence of participants.