Pranab Mukherjee and Mohan Bhagwat at Hedgewar Residence in Nagpur on Thursday. (Express Photo by Monica Chaturvedi)
A day after former President Pranab Mukherjee visited Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) headquarters in Nagpur, the RSS said in a statement on Friday that some divisive political forces had posted a morphed photo of Mukherjee standing in a position of prayer during recitation of Sangha Prarthana (prayer) at Thursday’s event.
In the statement, RSS Sahsarkaryavah Manmohan Vaidya said that these forces initially tried to create an opposition to make Mukherjee refrain from attending the event. “And now these frustrated forces are doing all such dirty tricks to defame RSS. We denounce and strongly condemn such dirty tricks by these divisive political forces to deliberately defame RSS,” he said.
Mukherjee’s daughter and Congress leader Sharmistha Mukherjee also spoke out over the photograph circulating on social media. “See, this is exactly what I was fearing & warned my father about. Not even few hours have passed, but BJP/RSS dirty tricks dept is at work in full swing!” she tweeted on Thursday night, a few hours after Mukherjee’s speech in Nagpur. She had reacted to another Congress leader who had tweeted the photograph.
On Wednesday, when Mukherjee reached Nagpur, Sharmistha had tweeted, “Hope @CitiznMukherjee now realises from todays’ incident, how BJP dirty tricks dept operates. Even RSS wouldn’t believe that u r going 2 endorse its views in ur speech. But the speech will be forgotten, visuals will remain & those will be circulated with fake statements.”
She had added, “By going 2 Nagpur, u r giving BJP/RSS full handle 2 plant false stories, spread falls rumours as 2day & making it somewhat believable. And this is just d beginning!”