The Congress is maintaining a tactical silence after former President of India Pranab Mukherjee — once one of the tallest leaders of the party — agreed to address Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) volunteers on June 7 at the organisation’s headquarters in Nagpur.
“As a former President he doesn’t belong to any party and he is above politics. It is up to him where he wants to go,” said a former Minister and a senior Congress leader who refused to come on record.
Though Mr. Mukherjee’s office has not commented, senior functionaries of the RSS confirmed that he had agreed to address the valedictory session of the Tritiya Varsh Varg (Third Year Course) of the RSS.
The Sangh invites eminent people for the annual event, held at its Nagpur headquarters, to address its new recruits. But the importance of the timing of the visit by Mr. Mukherjee is not lost on anyone.
Congress president Rahul Gandhi has been incessantly attacking the RSS for what he calls “a divisive ideology”. Mr. Gandhi is also facing a defamation case in a Maharashtra court for blaming the RSS ideology as the reason for Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination. He had blamed RSS’s ideology as recently as last week for the Thoothukudi police firing.
“Tamils are being killed since they refuse to bow to the ideology of the RSS. The feelings of the Tamil people can never be trampled by the bullets of the RSS and Modi. We are with you Tamil brothers and sisters #SterliteProtest,” Mr. Gandhi had on May 23 tweeted in Tamil.
Last week, he had also accused the Modi government of trying to change the norms of civil services recruitment to “handpick officers chosen by the RSS.”
