NEW DELHI: With Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi insisting that he stood by his comments linking RSS with Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination, he came under stringent attack from the BJP and RSS, who accused him of making repeated u-turns.
BJP charged that Gandhi’ assertion was result of vote bank politics.
RSS questioned Gandhi saying if he stood by his words then why did he avoid trial for two years. "Then why Rahul Gandhi avoided the trial for two years under one pretext or other? Is he scared to face truth? He keeps on taking U-turns," RSS Communications department head Manmohan Vaidya said.
The current round of controversy arose as Rahul told the Supreme Court on Thursday that he stood by every word of his statement against RSS for the killing of Mahatma Gandhi and was ready to face trial before a Maharashtra court which had issued summons to him as an accused in the case.
"I stand by each and every word. I will never take my words back. I stood by it yesterday, I stand by it today and I will stand by it in future. I am ready to go to trial," senior advocate Kapil Sibal, who appeared for Rahul, told a division bench of the court.
BJP, however, said Gandhi will be forced to apologise after making "U-turns" twice on the matter.
"His stand is driven by votebank politics. The UP polls are approaching and he is indulging in the politics of appeasement due to this. Jawaharlal Nehru had allowed RSS to take part in the Republic Day parade as he was impressed with its relief work during the China war. Will Congress say that Nehru was wrong?" its National Secretary Shrikant Sharma said.
At a press conference, Union minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy said Rahul Gandhi suffered from "amnesia" while party spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain took a dig at him, saying he holds the nationalist outfit responsible for his and Congress' current state of affairs and keeps attacking it.
"If he keeps making such attacks on RSS, then his party's tally will fall to four from 44. It has become his habit to attack those who love this country," Hussain said.