RSS uses discipline to kill individuality: Rahul

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 28

Political temperatures soared today as Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi took a slew of swipes at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and accused the RSS, BJP’s mentor organisation, of being a force “that used discipline to kill individuality”.

The RSS hit back with Sangh’s media head Manmohan Vaidya saying Rahul’s utterances exposed his frustration and ignorance about the Sangh, which was being increasingly admired by society, especially youth. The BJP, too, trashed Rahul’s potshots on the PM and the RSS as “silly and immature”.

An aggressive Rahul, in his 15-minute speech on the concluding day of the National Students Union of India Convention here, said: “It is easy to fight this government. They are faltering every day. Make in India will be a big zero because the PM is not empowering people and feels he can succeed by financing few industrialists…. Yesterday, when Dr Manmohan Singh said the economy was down, Modi took lessons from him on how to run the economy…I will ask Dr Singh what he taught the PM.”

BJP spokesperson GVL Narsimha said: “Rahul will be forced to regret his silly mistake as he doesn’t really know what exactly the former PM told his successor yesterday.”

Earlier, the Amethi MP spoke of the RSS-BJP ideology as being “intolerant of dissent” and urged his cadres to spread “Congress’ disorder where ever RSS was spreading its order”. In his diatribe against the Sangh, Rahul even went on to compare it with Hitler’s Nazi Party without naming the latter. “In RSS shakhas, you will see straight queues unlike the disorder you see in Congress meetings. That’s because the RSS doesn’t tolerate dissent. They use discipline to kill individuality…ask people to stand in a line and thrash them if they don’t,” Rahul said.