Congress baffled by Pranab's reported trip to RSS HQ

New Delhi: There is animated debate going on at the national level, around the news that former President Pranab Mukherjee, one who had dominated Congress politics prior to becoming head of state, is going to address RSS pracharaks on June 7^th at the RSS headquarters.

Congress leaders are stunned as to how Pranab, who had openly opposed RSS on many fronts, came to such a decision. Conversely, the BJP camp is elated that the BJP is getting purged of its untouchability. In parallel, there is also a sub-story doing the rounds that the 82-year old Pranab is going to wear the robe of prime ministerial candidate in the 2019 general elections.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi has been consistently blaming RSS for dividing the country along communal lines and making remote control rule of the Centre. He also had to face a court case for his statement about the role of the RSS in Gandhi's assassination. And Pranab Mukherjee is the political mentor of Rahul. On his part, Mukherjee himself had stated several times that RSS is anti-nation and an outfit with clandestine style of operation.

In spite of all this, the personal relations of the former President with RSS chief Mohan Bhagvat had come to light earlier. And his invitation to Mohan Bhagvat to the Rashtrapati Bhavan for a dinner was also subject of much discussion. So was his relations with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Mukherjee's new fixture comes, while for the last several decades no Congress leader has been to the RSS headquarters to give a speech there. And Congress spokesman Tom Vadakkan responded to a query about the visit that one should ask Mukherjee himself about it. The Congress's only comment was that there was no comment, he said.

What the RSS's organ Organiser says is that Mahatma Gandhi had attended the Sangh camp held at Wardha in 1934. The paper also recalls that he had held discussions with the then RSS chief Hedgewar on the future of India. Gandhi was assassinated in 1948. Pranab Mukherjee, who had expected the Congress to make him prime minister in the political situations following the assassination of Indira Gandhi, had also to give way to Manmohan Singh when the UPA captured power in 2004. The new debates have surfaced when it was guessed that he ended his political career as the President of the country.