NEW DELHI: On Mahatma Gandhi's death anniversary, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Friday recalled two separate letters written in 1948 to Syama Prasad Mookerjee by Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in which they strongly criticised and raised questions over the activities of the Hindu Mahasabha and the RSS.
The Congress general secretary in-charge communications said two days before Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated, Nehru had written to Mookerjee, and a few months later, on July 18 1948, Sardar Patel had also written to Mookerjee.
"Both are damning indictments of the self-declared custodians of nationalism. And to think that there is a Lok Sabha MP wedded to that ideology and who was blessed by the PM himself, who said that he could not choose between Gandhi and Godse. His mindset is revealing," Ramesh said on X, in an apparent reference to BJP MP Abhijit Gangopadhyay's controversial remarks in 2024.
Ramesh also shared a link to Nehru's address on All India Radio on the night of January 30, 1948 after Mahatma Gandhi's assassination.
In his letter to Mookerjee, Nehru had said the Hindu Mahasabha had held meetings in defiance of the ban order in Pune, Ahmednagar and Delhi.
"Speeches were delivered that Mahatma Gandhi was an impediment and the sooner he died the better it would be for the country. The R.S.S. has behaved in an even worse way and we have collected a mass of information about its very objectionable activities.," Nehru had said in his letter.
Ramesh also shared a screenshot of Patel's letter to Mookerjee in which the former criticised the activities of the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha.
Gandhi, the most prominent face of India's freedom movement, was assassinated by Nathuram Godse on this day in 1948.