Eyes on Nagpur as Pranab Mukherjee set to address RSS cadres. Your 5-point brief

In just a few hours, former President Pranab Mukherjee will attend the concluding ceremony of a course conducted by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the parent organistion of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Mukherjee is the chief guest, and will address Sangh cadres.

Mukherjee's appointment as India's head of state in 2012 disburdened him of party affiliations, but leaders of the organisation he served for decades -- the Indian National Congress -- have asked him to reconsider his decision to attend the Nagpur event.

Even his daughter and Congress leader Sharmistha Mukherjee has cautioned him against following through with his decision.

Here's your five-point cheatsheet on what's been happening, and what to expect this evening.

'WHATEVER I HAVE TO SAY, I'LL SAY IN NAGPUR' | A Bengali newspaper quoted Mukherjee as saying he has received "several letters, requests and phone calls" after news of his decision to attend the RSS event broke, but he hadn't "responded to anyone yet." Whatever he had to say, the former president said, he "will say in Nagpur".

'TELL THEM WHAT'S WRONG WITH RSS IDEOLOGY' | P Chidambaram, a senior Congress leader and former Union Minister, said there was no point in debating why Pranab Mukherjee accepted the RSS's invite after he'd already done so. "The more important thing to say is: Sir, you have accepted [the] invitation, please go there and tell them what is wrong with their ideology," he said.

OTHER DIGNITARIES | Sunil Shastri, the son of former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, and footballer Kalyan Chaubey, are among the dignitaries expected to attend today's event.

ASSAM CONGRESS CHIEF TEARS INTO RSS | In a letter to Pranab Mukherjee, Assam Congress chief Ripun Bora accused the RSS of "never" respecting the tricolour, and "propagating the idea of one nation, one religion [Hindutva]". He blamed it for what he called the "unabated" growth of "social and religious intolerance and politics of religious polarisation" during the Narendra Modi administration's tenure. He asked Pranab Mukherjee to reconsider his decision to attend today's event.

'PRANAB DA IS THE NEW SARDAR PATEL' | S Gurumurthy, an RSS ideologue, said India "must be grateful to Pranab da for finishing all attempts to outcaste [sic] a great organisation that has single-mindedly worked for this great nation." Mukherjee, he wrote in a tweet, was "is the new Sardar Patel."

(With inputs from Himanshu Mishra and IANS)

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