The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) plans to set up units in West Bengal's Darjeeling, Kalimpong Hills and neighbouring Sikkim, where the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) ideological source has almost no presence.
RSS functionaries aware of the matter have mentioned that decisions in this regard were taken at a four-day RSS meeting with chief Dr Mohan Bhagwat in Naxalbari, West Bengal this month, where clashes between armed peasants and the police which took place in May 1967 gave impetus to the Naxalbari movement.
The RSS meeting in the village this month was the organization's first such event. Dr Mohan Bhagwat reached Siliguri and addressed the workers and office-bearers at Sharda Vidya Mandir, a school run by RSS.
Bhagwat said that the RSS should start recruiting local people and expand the activities of the RSS in these areas when the office-bearers pointed out that it is difficult for the people of the plains to travel to the hilly area to carry out such campaigns. RSS runs residential schools in North Bengal and organizes mass marriages of poor tribals