‘RSS is root and BJP its fruit’: Kanhaiya Kumar blames RSS for BJP attacks on Bharat Jodo Yatra

The Congress youth leader says the RSS uses cultural things to attract voters from a religion and that its ideology will not succeed till the Gandhi family is around.

The RSS’s ideology cannot be implemented in the country till the time the Gandhi family is there, Kanhaiya Kumar said. (Photo: Twitter/@RajaBrar_INC)

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Congress leader Kanhaiya Kumar targeted the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) during the Bharat Jodo Yatra at Jalandhar in Punjab on Monday. He said both organisations share the same ideology, which is fundamentally different from that of the Congress.

“We are using the names BJP and RSS here because there has been a discussion in some corners about why Rahul Gandhi mentions the RSS when it does not attack him. It is an illusion that the BJP and the RSS are separate. Whatever attack the BJP launches on the Bharat Jodo Yatra or the Congress, it is the RSS that is behind it,” he told reporters in Adampur during the first break of the Yatra.

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“When the priest of the Ram mandir praised the Bharat Jodo Yatra, we welcomed that because we have no hatred for anyone and we welcome everyone who loves this country, believes in its Constitution, unity, multiculturalism and wishes to live with love and affection and respects its unity in diversity. This diversity is the strength of our country. You can see for example our hockey and cricket teams, Indian Army and business houses when we talk about diversity,” Kumar said.

“We don’t see the RSS and the BJP separately. The RSS is the root and BJP its fruit. The RSS may say it is a cultural organisation but its ideology is based on politics. We would like to make it clear that religion belongs to the country but not communalism. The RSS is using religious symbols for communal politics and it has nothing to do with religion.

“Curd is made from milk but curd is not milk; both have different characteristics. No religious person supports things like bloodshed and communal hatred. If someone is doing politics by using religious symbols, that is not religion. In our eyes, the RSS is not a cultural organisation; it uses cultural things to influence and attract voters from ‘that particular religion’,” he said.

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The RSS’s ideology cannot be implemented in the country till the time the Gandhi family is there, Kumar added.

The RSS keeps away from basic issues such as education, health, food and development, Kumar said. He asked whether the BJP and the RSS believed in the Constitution or not. “Our Bharat Jodo Yatra is uniting the people of our country, which is also the objective of our Constitution,” he said.

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Asked whether Parliament is sovereign, Kumar said that the Constitution had clarified how Parliament should function.

Punjab Congress chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring said the Yatra would enter Himachal Pradesh on Wednesday. On Thursday, however, there will be a rally at Pathankot in Punjab and from there the Yatra will enter Jammu and Kashmir the same day after walking for 6 km.

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