Rahul Gandhi told Supreme Court that he had not blamed the RSS for Gandhiji's assassination.
Highlights
- Rahul Gandhi accused of defaming RSS, blaming it for Gandhiji's killing
- Did not accuse RSS but people linked to it: Gandhi to Supreme Court
- Stand by every word I said, says Rahul Gandhi, RSS seeks apology
Rahul Gandhi today rejected the allegation that he has softened his attack on the RSS, claiming "I will never stop fighting the hateful and divisive agenda of RSS. I stand by every single word I said."
The RSS is the ideological mentor of the ruling BJP. One of its workers has sued Mr Gandhi for defamation over a speech he gave in 2014 while campaigning in Maharashtra for the general election that his party lost abysmally.
Mr Gandhi, 46, was reported as saying that people from the RSS had assassinated Gandhiji. Yesterday, he told the Supreme Court that he had not blamed the Hindu nationalist organization but "people associated with it" for the shooting of the Mahatma in 1948. Critics and the BJP said that amounted to Mr Gandhi conceding a big error.
"The fact is that he has made a mistake, which he should accept with generosity and should apologise for that," said MG Vaidya, a top ideologue of the RSS, to news agency ANI.
"If he now says the RSS was not involved, but the people who were involved in Gandhiji's murder were RSS-affiliated, then he must come clean on his statement that in what sense they were associated with the RSS, and what was their position and credential in the organization,"
The Supreme Court has asked the RSS complainant to offer his response next week to Mr Gandhi's clarification, seen as a major turnaround from his earlier stand. He had refused earlier to apologize, with his party saying he would rather face trial.
"We understand the accused never blamed RSS as the killer of Gandhi but a person associated with the RSS," the Supreme Court said yesterday, adding that if the RSS worker accepts Mr Gandhi's submission, it will dismiss the case.
Last month, the top court warned Mr Gandhi that he was wrong if he had collectively blamed the RSS for the killing of Gandhiji in 1948 by Hindu nationalist Nathuram Godse. After the assassination at Delhi's Birla House, the RSS was banned till it was exonerated. Godse was hanged.