Bengaluru: Dattatreya Hosabale has replaced Bhaiyyaji Joshi as the new general secretary of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS). On Saturday, the RSS confirmed the news on its Twitter handle. The election was held in Bengaluru during a two-day meeting of RSS’s highest decision-making body, the Akhila Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha.

Bhaiyyaji Joshi, 73, was elected general secretary in 2009  and completed four terms of three years each.

Dattatreya Hosabale is a 65-year-old RSS activist from Karnataka’s Hosabale family. In 1968, he joined the RSS and became a full-time organizer in 1978. In 2004, he was appointed to second in command of the RSS’s intellectual wing.

Joshi’s term has been extended several times in the past, but this time it was not possible due to his age, as well as the upcoming general elections in 2024 and the Sangh’s centennial celebrations in 2025.