Congress leader Rizwan Arshad said it was a known fact that the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh handed out sweets on the day Mahatma Gandhi was killed, ANI reported on Saturday. "It is a known fact that Nathuram Godse was a member of the RSS, and it is a known fact that they were upset with Gandhiji because he wanted to keep this country united," he said.
The Congress leader's statement was a reaction to the criticism that followed his party's vice president Rahul Gandhi's comment on the right-wing organisation's role in the freedom fighter's assassination. Arshad said his party was determined to take on the RSS and its ideology. "The RSS wanted bloodshed, and it is their ideology that killed Mahatma Gandhi," the Karnataka Pradesh Youth Congress president added.
The BJP told ANI that the Congress vice president had "compromised his credibility with his statements". The ruling party at the Centre also questioned whether he would be able to accept the allegation that the Congress was responsible for the massacre of Sikhs during the 1984 riots.
During a campaign in Maharashtra before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Gandhi had said the RSS had assassinated Mohandas Gandhi. An RSS worker had filed a defamation case against him in court, after which the Congress leader had moved the Supreme Court and sought for the case to be quashed. On July 19, the top court told Gandhi that he "can't make [such] collective denunciations". He later said he had not meant to accuse the RSS as a whole of assassinating Mahatma Gandhi.
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