New Delhi: Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge stated Friday that, in his “private opinion”, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which he accused, together with the BJP, of being “on the root of regulation and order issues” within the nation, needs to be “banned” and described its ideology as a “poison”.

Talking to reporters at his residence right here, the Rajya Sabha chief of opposition (LoP) criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for accusing the Congress of “undermining” Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s legacy after his demise.

Kharge stated that the Modi authorities’s choice, taken in July 2024, to raise the prohibition on authorities servants from taking part in RSS actions amounted to “disrespecting Patel”, who had banned RSS in 1948 after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.

“Naturally, he (Modi) is disrespecting Patel, who had offered all the explanations behind his choice to ban the RSS. He additionally wrote to Shyama Prasad Mookerjea, Golwalker. There is no such thing as a ambiguity,” stated Kharge, responding to a query on the Centre’s 2024 choice.

Requested about Samajwadi Occasion chief Akhilesh Yadav’s assertion that the nation wants somebody like Sardar Patel to ban the RSS once more, Kharge stated, “My private opinion is, and I’ll overtly say it, that it (the ban) needs to be imposed holding in thoughts the info positioned earlier than us by Sardar Patel. If his views are to be revered by PM Modi and Amit Shah, then the ban needs to be there. The BJP and the RSS are the basis of every little thing unhealthy that’s occurring and regulation and order points.”

Additional questioning the federal government’s choice to raise restrictions on authorities workers taking part in RSS actions, Kharge stated it was akin to resurrecting forces inimical to the nation’s pursuits.

“Let me put it in my language, which isn’t so refined,” he stated. “When you kill a snake and poison comes out, and somebody goes on to lick that poison, that particular person will die. That’s the inevitable consequence. What the PM has revived is unhealthy for the nation.”

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 actions on the premises of presidency institutions.

Priyank had beforehand posted on X that “the day the individuals vest me with sufficient energy, I’ll use each constitutional device to dismantle the poisonous, anti-national equipment of the RSS,” which celebrated its centenary earlier this 12 months at Delhi’s Vigyan Bhavan.

Over the past decade, assaults on the RSS have additionally been a central characteristic of Congress chief and Lok Sabha LoP Rahul Gandhi’s political technique. He has repeatedly stated that the Congress’s ongoing political combat within the nation 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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