What does the TRS have in common with the Congress? Both have a former RSS worker as minister in the Union Council of Ministers. Both, Minister of State A. Narendra of the TRS and Congress minister Shankersingh Vaghela, were former RSS workers. And Narendra’s recent visit to an RSS camp in Hyderabad has kicked up a controversy, with local Telangana Regional Congress Committee leaders questioning his continuance as minister. The leaders are planning to meet party chief Sonia Gandhi soon in this regard.But Narendra does not seem ruffled by the developments. ‘‘The TRS president asked me to go and talk to them (the RSS) on the statehood issue and I did,’’ he says. Would that mean he will not go to RSS camps if ordered not to? ‘‘No, it does not mean I will or will not keep going.But I am ideologically not with the RSS anymore,’’ he says, then adds: ‘‘I am like Vaghela. He was an RSS pracharak. Like him, I have left the RSS.’’He evaded a direct reply when asked for his opinion on the dismissal of Governors with RSS background, saying: ‘‘My opinion is of no use’’.Telangana Regional Congress Committee members had protested against Narendra’s visit to the RSS camp, saying it would hurt the UPA’s secular credentials. Coming to Narendra’s defence, TRS chief Chandrashekar Rao says, ‘‘Our secular credentials are intact. We don’t want to hide Narendra’s background or that he was with the BJP till three years ago.’’‘‘We have a secular constitution and he is bound by that. There is nothing wrong if he went to talk to the RSS about some issue,’’ he explains.The TRS chief suspects a deeper conspiracy behind the issue, and says: ‘‘All this reaction stems from the fact that leaders in Andhra Pradesh cannot digest that someone from the backward community is a minister’’.Narendra had won the last election from Medak in Telangana region on a BJP ticket but quit the party because, ‘‘we did not agree on the issue of separate statehood’’. Then why was it necessary for him to discuss the statehood issue with RSS? In response, Narendra gets an RSS publication from 1969 to show how senior RSS leaders had stressed ‘‘division of Andhra would be good’’.The controversy comes at a time when the Congress is engaged in an exercise to remove Governors ‘‘affiliated with the Sangh Parivar’’. But party spokesperson Anand Sharma says, ‘‘Narendra is in the government as a representative of the TRS. If they have any conflicts with the constitution of their party, it is for them to explain.’’
