Congress MP Ahmed Patel. (Express photo by Renuka Puri/File)
Adding to the chorus of dissenting voices, senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel on Thursday expressed his displeasure against Pranab Mukherjee’s decision to attend a RSS event in Nagpur and said he “did not expect this” from the former President. In reply to Mukherjee’s daughter Sharmistha’s disapproval over the same, Patel, who is UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi’s close confidant, tweeted, “I did not expect this from Pranab da!”
I did not expect this from Pranab da ! http://t.co/VBqXZ8x7SE
— Ahmed Patel (@ahmedpatel) June 6, 2018
On Wednesday, Sharmistha took to the micro-blogging site to remind her father that “by going to Nagpur, you are giving BJP/RSS full handle to plant false stories…”. Reacting to media reports of her joining BJP, Sharmistha first tweeted: “In the mountains enjoying a beautiful sunset and suddenly this news that I’m supposedly joining BJP hits like a torpedo!
Can’t there be some peace and sanity in this world? I joined politics because I believe in Congress. Would rather leave politics than leave Congress.”
Soon after, came two more tweets addressed to her father, who has the Twitter handle @CitiznMukherjee. In the first, she wrote: “Hope @CitiznMukherjee realises from today’s incident, how BJP’s dirty tricks department operates. Even RSS wouldn’t believe that you are going to endorse its views in your speech. But the speech will be forgotten, visuals will remain and those will be circulated with fake statements.”
Then, she wrote: “By going to Nagpur, you are giving BJP and RSS full handle to plant false stories, spread false rumours as today and making it somewhat believable. And this is just the beginning!”
Pranab Mukherjee is in Nagpur today to address an RSS event in the evening. The visit has given rise to a lot of speculation and has been opposed both by the Congress and his ‘parivar’. Some Congress leaders, including Jairam Ramesh and C K Jaffar Sharief, had also written to him expressing displeasure over his acceptance of RSS invite.