Ralegan Siddhi/New Delhi:
An RSS statement claiming that it was part of Anna Hazare's movement today snowballed into a controversy with the Gandhian dismissing the claim and the Congress saying it has given a lie to his claim of being non-partisan.
Debunking the RSS claim, Hazare told reporters: "Nobody approached me. Not a single RSS worker met me or approached me. How are they saying this? I don't know."
He was reacting to RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat's remarks at the RSS' annual Dussehra rally in Nagpur yesterday that its volunteers "are already active in all movements against corruption without craving for their own position and credit".
Referring to Bhagwat's claim, Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh said Bhagwat's Dusshera speech "vindicated" what he had been saying all along that "the campaigns of Baba Ramdev and Anna Hazare have been planned, engineered and organized by the RSS".
"I still hold to it," he told reporters here.
Taking a jibe at Hazare for his previous reactions to such remarks, Singh said: "Whenever I say that Anna's campaign was run by the RSS, he tells me that I should go to the mental asylum. Now after Mohan Bhagwat's assertions, I want to ask Anna do I still need to go to an asylum?"
The senior Congress leader said that Hazare should now accept the RSS involvement in his agitation since Bhagwat has already "admitted" to it. (
Read: I stand vindicated on RSS-Hazare agitation link: Digvijaya)
At the AICC briefing, party spokesperson Manish Tewari echoed similar views saying "what is evident need not to be evidenced" when asked about Bhagwat's statements.
The party reaction came against the backdrop of the Gandhian announcing his plans to campaign against it in the Hisar Lok Sabha bypoll.
Tewari, however, downplayed the issue saying that Congress fights all the elections with full gusto and accepts the people's verdict with grace. "We will try our best to win the trust of the people," he added when pointed out that Hazare has decided to campaign against Congress there.
Bhagwat in his speech on Thursday lashed out at Government for attempting to crush anti-corruption movement and condemned the reported police brutality on the supporters of Baba Ramdev at Ramlila Maidan in June.