NAGPUR: Amid raging criticism by opposition parties and his own daughter Sharmistha Mukherjee for accepting invitation to be chief guest at a
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) function, former President
Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday arrived in the city where the Sangh was born 92 years ago.
Mukherjee was received at the airport by five RSS functionaries as he landed around 5pm in a flight from Delhi. No local Congress leader was present at the airport to greet Mukherjee. The former President was received at the airport by Sah Sarkaryavah (joint general secretary) V Bhagaiah and four others.
According to the media invite for the valedictory function of Sangh Shiksha Varg Tritya Varsh (third and final year of Sangh training course) — for which the former President has accepted to be the chief guest — the event will begin at 6.30pm on Thursday. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat will address the trainees.
Sources told TOI that Mukherjee will spend four hours, from 5.30pm to 9.30pm, at RSS’s Reshimbagh facility on Thursday. He has been also requested to stay back for dinner.
Thanks to the media hype, there is unusual curiosity about what he would tell the swayam sevaks in his address. “Whatever I have to say, I will say in Nagpur,” Mukherjee had said last week in his only published response to the event.