New Delhi: Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said Friday that, in his “personal opinion”, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which he accused, along with the BJP, of being “at the root of law and order problems” in the country, should be “banned” and described its ideology as a “poison”.
Speaking to reporters at his residence here, the Rajya Sabha leader of opposition (LoP) criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for accusing the Congress of “undermining” Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s legacy after his death.
Kharge slammed PM Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah for portraying Sardar Patel and Jawaharlal Nehru as being at odds on key issues. Kharge cited letters and statements from the two Congress stalwarts themselves, emphasising the mutual respect and warmth that characterised their relationship.
Kharge said that the Modi government’s decision, taken in July 2024, to lift the prohibition on government servants from participating in RSS activities amounted to “disrespecting Patel”, who had banned RSS in 1948 after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.
“Naturally, he (Modi) is disrespecting Patel, who had presented all the reasons behind his decision to ban the RSS. He also wrote to Shyama Prasad Mookerjea, Golwalker. There is no ambiguity,” said Kharge, responding to a question on the Centre’s 2024 decision.
Asked about Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav’s statement that the country needs someone like Sardar Patel to ban the RSS again, Kharge said, “My personal opinion is, and I will openly say it, that it (the ban) should be imposed keeping in mind the facts placed before us by Sardar Patel. If his views are to be respected by PM Modi and Amit Shah, then the ban should be there. The BJP and the RSS are the root of everything bad that is happening and law and order issues.”
Further questioning the government’s decision to lift restrictions on government employees participating in RSS activities, Kharge said it was akin to resurrecting forces inimical to the country’s interests.
“Let me put it in my language, which is not so sophisticated,” he said. “If you kill a snake and poison comes out, and someone goes on to lick that poison, that person will die. That’s the inevitable result. What the PM has revived is bad for the country.”
Earlier this month, Karnataka Minister Priyank Kharge, the son of Congress president, sparked a political row by urging Chief Minister Siddaramaiah in a letter to ban RSS activities on the premises of government establishments.
Priyank had previously posted on X that “the day the people vest me with enough power, I will use every constitutional tool to dismantle the toxic, anti-national machinery of the RSS,” which celebrated its centenary earlier this year at Delhi’s Vigyan Bhavan.
Over the last decade, attacks on the RSS have also been a central feature of Congress leader and Lok Sabha LoP Rahul Gandhi’s political strategy. He has repeatedly said that the Congress’s ongoing political fight in the country is with the ideology of the RSS, which he believes is at odds with India’s pluralist ethos.
(Edited by Shashank Kishan)
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