Hours after Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi charged that he was stopped from entering a Vaishanvite monastery in Barpeta by RSS workers during his visit to Assam, the temple chief on Monday categorically denied the allegation even as the BJP came out with an audio and video footage to counter the claims.
Alleging that Rahul’s statement was “fabricated”, the BJP said the RSS does not run temples and without naming anyone it maintained that “wrong messages” are being spread to “mislead” people. Assam BJP accused Rahul of lying and came out with audio and video footages showing that the Gandhi scion decision not to enter the Satra was a conscious one taken by the party “to save time and also to avoid the mandatory custom of taking a bath and wearing a Dhoti before entering the Satra.”
Bakhista Deba Sarma, the head of Barpeta Satra, the Vaishnavite monastery, dismissed Rahul’s claim. “There is no opposition to the visit of Rahul Gandhi. I along with former Assam Chief Minister and senior Congress leader Bhumidhar Barman and hundreds of people waited in the gate for him for more than four hours. However, upon his arrival, Rahul Gandhi chose to take a different route and went ahead to utter disappointment of everyone,” Sarma told The Pioneer even as he urged everyone not to drag the 16th century Vaishnavite institution into politics.
He said there was no RSS worker at the religious place and termed the allegation as “unfortunate”. “To spread lies about RSS is an old game of frustrated Congress Party from Nirmal Khatri to Rahul Gandhi,” RSS chief spokesperson Manmohan Vaidya said, according to a RSS tweet.
But Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi stuck to his stand. Gogoi had maintained that the Satra had told him that Rahul Gandhi will not be allowed to enter the monastery. “Never heard anyone being prevented from entering the Satra before. I ask them even today why they prevented (Rahul from entering). Everyone has the right to enter. If RSS is not there, then why not question them why we were not allowed in,” the Chief Minister told reporters in Guwahati.
BJP said Rahul has become a “lying machine” and was resorting to such non-issues to disrupt Parliament. “Earlier somebody (former Union Minister Kumari Selja) claimed that she was stopped from entering a temple in Dwarka and she was exposed in Parliament. What Gandhi says is fabricated and a lie,” BJP leader and Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi told reporters in Delhi.
Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu without naming anyone said “spreading” wrong messages and to mislead people has become the habit. “Do RSS run the templesIJ,” he asked.
In another video footage, Assam Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) president Anjan Dutta told, “We had sought two helicopters for the visit to Barpeta but eventually we got one. We started late due to inclement weather and when we reached there, we were late by an hour. We were informed that 50,000 people had gathered at the rally venue. So, we decided that we would first go on with the march and the rally and enter the Satra on the way back.”
Sarma said that both the footages clearly indicate that it was a conscious decision of the Congress not to enter the Satra as addressing the rally was his priority than entering the Satra. “He (Rahul Gandhi) should apologise to the people of Assam and Barpeta for his lie,” said Sarma.