On September 17, Narendra Modi will turn 75. Since BJP follows an unwritten rule that leaders above 75 retire from active politics, Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut’s remark that Modi visited the RSS headquarters in Nagpur to discuss his retirement has caused a political stir.
Speaking at a press conference in Mumbai, Raut claimed that RSS would decide BJP’s next key leader from Maharashtra. As BJP functions under RSS’s ideological influence, Modi allegedly consulted and informed RSS about his retirement plans during his visit, Raut asserted. Naturally, BJP leaders immediately dismissed this claim as false, launching a political counterattack.
Significantly, this was Modi’s first visit to the RSS headquarters in Nagpur in the 11 years since he became Prime Minister. Moreover, he became the first sitting Indian Prime Minister in history to enter the RSS headquarters. No previous Prime Minister had visited the headquarters while in office.
On Sunday, PM Modi attended an event at the RSS headquarters in Nagpur, where he laid the foundation stone for the expansion of the Madhav Netralaya Centre. He also offered floral tributes at the memorial of RSS founder Keshav Baliram Hedgewar in Reshimbagh. However, Shiv Sena’s Sanjay Raut’s statement turned this routine visit into a political controversy, putting BJP in an awkward position.
BJP’s top leadership swiftly refuted Raut’s claims. Modi was accompanied on his Nagpur visit by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis, and his cabinet colleague Nitin Gadkari. Interestingly, Raut’s assertion that BJP’s next key leader would be from Maharashtra was widely interpreted as a reference to Nitin Gadkari, a politician with strong RSS ties who emerged from Nagpur onto the national stage.
Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis strongly rejected Raut’s remarks, stating that in Sanatan Dharma, a successor is not chosen while the leader is still active. He argued that the practice of seizing power before a leader steps down is rooted in Mughal traditions, not Sanatan Dharma. Fadnavis further insisted that Narendra Modi would lead BJP in the 2029 general elections and continue as Prime Minister.
In 2019, then-BJP President Amit Shah had publicly declared that leaders above 75 would retire from active politics. In an interview with The Week in April 2019, Shah clearly outlined this policy. As a result, Modi-Shah’s faction had sidelined veteran leaders like Lal Krishna Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi from contesting the Lok Sabha elections, with Amit Shah himself replacing Advani in the Gandhinagar seat. Over the years, this rule has led to the retirement of several senior yet influential BJP leaders.
When Amit Shah announced this policy in 2019, he may not have foreseen that a few years later, the same question would arise about Narendra Modi himself.