Pranab Mukherjee & Mohan Bhagwat speeches almost similar, says RSS

KOLKATA: More than a fortnight after Pranab Mukherjee attended an RSS event in Nagpur as the chief guest, the sangh has published an open letter thanking the former President for attending the programme despite severe opposition from his “own people”, and for visiting the birthplace of the organisation’s founder, Keshav Baliram Hedgewar.
According to the letter, undersigned by Manmohan Vaidya, the character of the speeches of Mukherjee and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat at the Tritiya Sangh Shiksha Varg was similar, though the language and the words they chose were different, and there was no scope of controversy on that.

The RSS claimed that following the June 7 event, there was an over threefold rise in the average number of applications on the ‘Join RSS’ portal. The portal that used to receive about 400 applications per day on an average got nearly 1,800 applications on June 7.

“Since then, the number is around 1,100 to 1,200 every day. Significantly, at least 40% of these applications come from Bengal,” said Jishnu Basu, the state secretary of the RSS.

The organisation is not crediting Mukherjee’s presence in the programme for the increased number, but trying to explain it as a “boost” on the day of a big event.

“Sangh’s acceptability among people does not depend on any personality. But, Pranab Mukherjee is the former President and a veteran politician. So, his decision to attend the event had given a boost. The event was an important one for us,” he added.

Rantideb Sengupta, editor of RSS’ Bengali magazine Swastika, said: “The programme was never political in nature. Every year, Mohan Bhagwat-ji delivers his speech on pluralism and the diverse nature of the country. Pranab Mukherjee has done the same. Pranab babu considered it as a suitable platform to deliver his speech and that is why he chose to attend this programme. ”