The Congress on Saturday slammed RSS and BJP for their alleged “distasteful, malicious distortion of history” and demanded a statement from Prime Minister Narendra Modi over an article in an RSS mouthpiece which suggests that Nathuram Godse should have targeted Jawaharlal Nehru instead of Mahatma Gandhi.
Terming the article, which has appeared in the Malayalam edition of RSS mouthpiece Kesari, “barbaric and illegal”, Congress general secretary Ajay Maken asked Modi and BJP to immediately make their stand clear in this regard.
“Silence on their part would only point towards their complicity. The argument by the BJP leader that Godse should have killed Nehru instead of Mahatma Gandhi reaffirms that the basic tenets of their ideology are hatred and violence.
“It is difficult to find this kind of perverse discourse anywhere except the darkest corner of a bankrupt mind that the RSS and BJP thrive upon,” said Maken.
The writer of the piece, B Gopalakrishnan, who was a BJP candidate in the recent lok Sabha elections in Kerala, has also claimed in it that Nehru never had any genuine attachment with Mahatma Gandhi.
But even as RSS dissociated itself from the article saying it does not endorse the views expressed by the author, Congress spokesperson Anand Sharma said that Modi, BJP chief Amit Shah and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat should come out with a statement to clarify their stand on it or “expel” its author and sack the editor of the journal.
Further, Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh said in a tweet, “Is it the beginning of rewriting Indian HistoryIJ BJP/RSS and Modi must come out with a categorical Statement on this. I know they won’t.”
Singh said that the article “reflects the hardcore RSS ideology” and that he “strongly” condemns it.
The editor of the weekly has stood by the article but stoutly refuted the Congress’s allegations.
Reacting sharply, Sharma charged, “This article is not only a distasteful, malicious distortion of history but also confirms a sick mindset. This warrants serious note as it reaffirms that RSS has a philosophy of violence and endorsing assassinations.”
Charging that the BJP has been for some time trying to “usurp” the two Congress leaders, Gandhi and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Sharma said “let this not be forgotten that RSS men were in the zone of suspicion in the assassination of the Father of the Nation, which led to the decision by then Home Minister Patel to ban the RSS.
“The letter by Patel to (RSS chief MS) Golwalkar is a historical indictment of the organisation and its workers celebrating the dastardly act by Godse.”
Maken, in a statement, said what is worrying is that “such horrifying and illicit views of a member of the ruling party are shamelessly carried in the RSS mouthpiece”.
Meanwhile, in another tweet, Singh took potshots at Union Minister Nitin Gadkari over reports that the BJP leader had violated traffic rules by riding a scooter without wearing a helmet.
“Gadkari violates the law which he should be enforcing by riding a scooter without Helmet. Is this the example he and the NDA Govt wants to setIJ
“Would Police Commissioner Nagpur register a case against him or wait for a PIl to be filed against GadkariIJ” he said.