Madhya Pradesh government on Wednesday restored security cover at Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sang (RSS) office in Bhopal.
The state government withdrew security from the RSS headquarters on Tuesday. Following which, the Kamal Nath government had come under a lot of criticism for allegedly taking away the security provided to the RSS office just two weeks ahead of the commencement of polling.
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath had said that he has given orders to provide security to the RSS office in Bhopal again. "We may have ideological differences with the RSS; they may have been at loggerheads with us, but I am not in support of the decision to withdraw security from their office. I am therefore giving orders to provide security to the RSS office again," he said.
Miffed over Madhya Pradesh Government's decision of withdrawing security from RSS headquarters, the Sangh Parivar had on Tuesday said that they were not informed in advance.
Speaking to ANI, RSS leader Kanti Lal said: "This incident happened late at night, I was inside the office at around 10 pm, engaged in meetings. When I came out of the office I saw that the security had been removed from and around the office. I was then approached by a reporter from the television who asked me why the security was removed. I told him that I had no idea why the security was removed from the office. We were not informed in advance about security being removed".
Expressing dismay, he went on to add: "We had never asked for security at the RSS office before, but now that they have removed it we are unable to find any reason for this sudden decision. This overnight decision by the government to remove security at 10 pm has bewildered us."
However, ASP Akhil Patel, while speaking to ANI, termed it a "routine activity" done before every election in order to mobilise forces needed for the safe conduct of polls. "We have not removed security from the RSS office, only the SAF guards have been removed. As elections are about to take place across the country, the SAF guards need to be sent to different areas. So we have removed them from six positions amongst which one is the RSS office," he said.
Polling for the 29 Lok Sabha seats at stake in Madhya Pradesh will be held in four phases - on April 29, May 6, 12 and 19. Counting of votes will take place on May 23.
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