Echo of past in Sangh plea to Singh

New Delhi, Feb. 11:

The RSS has sent the Prime Minister a missive in which sections of the Sangh spotted echoes from letters written by a former sarsanghachalak, Balasaheb Deoras, to Indira Gandhi.



The letter, signed by general secretary Suresh "Bhayya" Joshi, urged Manmohan Singh to take a "fair and objective" view of investigations into the Malegaon, Ajmer and Hyderabad blasts that have implicated a few RSS functionaries, former and serving, including senior pracharak Indresh Kumar.



It drew the Prime Minister's attention to a chargesheet filed by the Maharashtra ATS on January 20, 2009, on the Malegaon blast that allegedly contained transcripts of conversations between two of the accused, Colonel Purohit and Dayanand Pandey. They were allegedly plotting to kill the present sarsanghachalak, Mohanrao Bhagwat, and Kumar with "chemical weapons".



The RSS's case was that the state ATS deliberately suppressed this "explosive" evidence in its submissions to Bombay High Court because that would have foiled its efforts to bracket the Sangh with the Malegaon "conspirators".



It asked the Prime Minister to set up an "impartial and independent" inquiry into the "hidden missions" of Purohit and his associates and to make a distinction between its swayamsevaks and the accused.



The letter, sent yesterday, also dwelt on the RSS's "nation-building work" for which, Joshi claimed, it was lauded by former Presidents and Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri. Joshi flaunted Nehru's "endorsement", saying that despite his "serious differences" with the organisation he invited the swayamsevaks to show up at the 1963 Republic Day parade.



Joshi complained against Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh — without naming him — for his "vicious" campaign against "saffron terror". Although RSS spokespersons Manmohan Vaidya and Ram Madhav stressed at a media briefing today that the letter was drafted with the approval of the Sangh brass — and after informing the BJP — it is learnt that a few persons objected at a recent meeting, saying it might be "counterproductive" and perceived as a "desperate" attempt to shore up its defences that were frayed by the probes into the blasts.



Sangh sources admitted that the disclosures confirmed the existence of a "militant, radical fringe" within its ranks and that it was "forced to confront this reality".



The last thing it wanted was another proscription, they added.



Although Joshi's tone was more defensive than abject, sources said they recalled how the Sangh never quite "pardoned" Deoras — the third sarsanghachalak — for the two letters he wrote to Indira Gandhi in 1975 when she had banned the RSS.



In one, he praised her for her August 15 speech from the Red Fort and exhorted her to "rescind the ban".



In another, he lauded her foreign policy with an appeal to lift the ban. She ignored both the missives.



Sources said they expected Singh to also do similarly, especially with the Sangh's political offspring, the BJP, breathing down his neck before the budget session.



Spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said: "The RSS has only put its concerns on record.



It is unfortunate that instead of following the line of investigation it has asked for, the government has clubbed RSS and Abhinav Bharat together."




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