New Delhi: Rahul Gandhi and his dada-pardada (forefathers) have harboured hatred against the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) for a long time, RSS joint general secretary Manmohan Vaidya said Monday, reacting to a tweet by the Congress showing a pair of khaki shorts on fire.
Khaki shorts were part of the RSS’s uniform until they were replaced by dark brown trousers in 2016.
Posted as part of the Congress’s Bharat Jodo Yatra campaign, the picture was accompanied by a message that read: “To free the country from shackles of hate and undo the damage done by BJP-RSS. Step by step, we will reach our goal.”
While RSS leaders generally refrain from attacking politicians, Vaidya said, “We support anyone who tries to unite the country but Bharat Jodo (uniting India) should not begin with hatred,” adding that the Congress had banned the Sangh twice “for no reason”.
“Will they connect people through hate? Rahulji’s dada-pardada ne bhi yehi kiya (his forefathers did the same thing). They banned the Sangh twice for no reason. The Sangh did not die, but kept rising every time it was attacked. They have been harbouring hatred against us for a long time,” Vaidya said, addressing the media on the last day of the organisation’s three-day Samanvay Baithak in Raipur.
“There is growing support for Hindutva in society. You cannot unite the country with hatred and contempt,” he warned.
The RSS leader further said that the “khaki half-pants even ceased to exist as the Sangh’s uniform. We shifted to full pants long ago. Rahulji is not even aware of that. He is so ignorant about the Sangh”.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s 3,500-km Bharat Jodo Yatra continued through Kerala Monday, its sixth day. The march from Kanyakumari to Kashmir is planned to be completed in 150 days and cover 12 states.
Speaking about self-reliance, Vaidya said the Indian “samaj (society) needs to stand on its own feet”.
Referring to an article written by Rabindranath Tagore, titled ‘Swadeshi Samaj’, the RSS leader said: “Indian society was never a welfare state. It was not Bharat’s tradition. Tagore wrote that the state used to have defence, foreign affairs, and the judiciary under its control. For all other departments, including agriculture, temples, culture, art, information, food and so on, society used to have its own arrangements. A tent on a pole is always susceptible to collapse, but if the tent is built on different poles, it can stand storms.”
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BJP retaliates
BJP leaders, too, hit out at the Congress over its Twitter post.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma termed it a “shameful tweet representing such a shameful mindset”, and added, “In the garb of Bharat Jodo [uniting India], it is indulging in Bharat Todo [breaking India].”
Giriraj Singh, Union minister for rural development and Panchayati Raj, also attacked Gandhi on Twitter, saying the Congress had “a family business of breaking or burning the country”.
Other leaders blamed the Congress for “instigating violence” through the tweet and asked the party to take it down immediately.
“The Congress has bared its fangs in just five days! A party that has thrived on organised violence, from Nellie to Bhagalpur, from Khairlanji to Godhra, from Hashimpura to the Sikh genocide, can never Jodo Bharat. Congress is evil. It deserves to be confined to the dustbin of history,” said Amit Malviya, in-charge of BJP’s national information and technology department.
R.P. Singh, national spokesperson of the BJP, said the “corrupt and those who have looted the nation should fear the khaki”, referring to the tweet.
National spokesperson and senior BJP leader Sambit Patra hit out at the Congress campaign by terming it a ‘Bharat Todo’ yatra. Slamming “hate politics”, he told reporters: “It’s not ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ but ‘Bharat Todo’ and ‘Aag Lagao Yatra’. This is not the first time the Congress has done so. I want to ask Rahul Gandhi, ‘do you want violence in this country?’”
He also asked the Congress to “take down the photo immediately”.
“How murders should take place, how there should be unrest… this is nothing but an attempt to provoke and instigate people by the Gandhi family, and the Congress has done this on their insistence. You can see how in Kerala so many RSS functionaries have been murdered brutally. Those who believe in a certain ideology, whether the RSS or the BJP, have been murdered,” Patra alleged.
“Through this picture, a clear-cut conspiracy, a message has been sent by Rahul Gandhi and the Congress to terrorists to target the RSS and the BJP and those who are associated with a certain ideology,” he added.
“By tweeting this photo, by sending this message, Rahul Gandhi, do you want violence in this country? Do you want people to burn each other? Do you want people to burn those people who follow the ideology of the RSS or the BJP? Is this the message that you are trying to deliver? Is this the message the Congress wants to deliver?” Patra asked.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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