New Delhi: A tug of war seems to be waging between the Congress and the Sangh Parivar over former President Mr Pranab Mukherjee.
While the Congress rallied around Mr Mukherjee for “showing the mirror of truth to the RSS” and invited him for an Iftaar party president Rahul Gandhi is hosting on Wednesday, the Sangh mouthpiece Organiser has come out with a cover story interpreting his speech as a direct assault on the Congress and the Nehru-Gandhi clan.
In their bid to appropriate Mr Mukherjee, Organiser pointed out some "interesting omissions" in his speech at Nagputr last week. "Apart from the word minority some of the interesting omissions from the speech of Mr Mukherjee were the names Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi and the Congress party itself,” it said.
For the RSS mouthpiece, the former President also went against the Congress and the secular "cabal" while speaking about the minority community, particularly the Mughals. It wrote that during his "candid" speech, Mr Mukherjee suggested that "India was a State long before the concept of the European nation-state gained ground". It then went on to point out that the "the-Left liberal secular media cabal led by the Congress has been preaching that the Mughals came to Bharat to teach how to cook biryani and the British taught us to bake cake", and added, "he talked about Mahajanapadas, Chandragupta Maurya victory over the Greeks and other parts of Indian history which have been masked by left liberal secular media cabal."
While Mr Mukherjee had spoken elaborately about Jawaharlal Nehru's conviction in secularism and pluralism, the mouthpiece claimed that "he (Pranab Mukherjee) did not give credit to Nehru for unifying India".
For the RSS mouthpiece, Mr Mukherjee tactfully dismissed the Congress' charge of economic paralysis under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and it became clear when the former President "pointed out to the Congress party which was objecting openly to his participation in an RSS event....We have done well on our economic growth indicators." This statement was a clear "praise of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP-led Central Government," the RSS mouthpiece said.
