Wednesday, June 29 2005 10:42 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: The controversy created by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president L K Advani's comments on Pakistan founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah and the future leadership of the party are expected to figure prominently in the crucial meeting of top Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) functionaries in Surat this weekend.

At the four-day meet beginning on July 2, the Sangh fountainhead is expected to air its views strongly on ideology and warn its affiliates against attempts to dilute it.

With BJP keeping its fingers crossed on the RSS deliberations, its senior leaders met a top functionary of RSS in an apparent bid to assuage the Sangh fountainhead in the wake of the controversy over Advani's remarks on Jinnah.

BJP vice-president M Venkaiah Naidu and general secretaries Rajnath Singh, Sanjay Joshi and Bal Apte went to RSS headquarters in New Delhi on Monday (Jun 27, 2005) evening and met RSS' Joint General Secretary Suresh Soni, party sources said in New Delhi yesterday (Jun 28, 2005).

During the more than an hour-long meeting, the BJP leaders are understood to have impressed upon the RSS leadership that it should restrain from criticising Advani over his Jinnah remarks, they said.

Soni is believed to have told the BJP leaders that the Jinnah issue would come up for discussion but assured them that efforts would be made to keep the tone and tenor mild.

The Provincial Organisers of the RSS will meet for annual confabulations in Surat from July 2. Besides Provincial Organisers, the all-India functionaries of the Sangh and important 'pracharaks' from the Parivar organisations will also attend the 'Prant Pracharak Bhaithak' (Regional Organisers' meet).