Calls to ban Sanatan Sanstha, like RSS ban demand: Goa BJP

The BJP here on Saturday likened the demand to ban the Goa-based Hindu organisation Sanatan Sanstha to the Congress-led regimes' demands for banning the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) in the past.

Speaking to reporters at the party's headquarters in Panaji, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state president Vinay Tendulkar dismissed his own party legislator's demand to ban Sanatan Sanstha, saying: "If there are charges (against Sanatan Sanstha members), they have not been proven...

"...Earlier, such demands were made against the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. The Congress was in power for several years but they did not have courage to ban RSS," he said while stating the state BJP's view on demands for banning the Sanstha.

The ban demand had come in the wake of Sanatan Sanstha's members being accused of murdering Leftist leader Govind Pansare.

Reacting to a demand to ban the Sanstha by Vishnu Wagh, a BJP legislator from St. Andre, Tendulkar said: "That is his personal opinion."

Six members of the Sanstha were accused of plotting an IED blast in Margao town in South Goa in 2009. However, they were acquitted later.

The Sanatan Sanstha, having a significant following in Goa, Karnataka and Maharashtra, is headquartered in South Goa's Ramnathi village, located 35 km from here.

The RSS is the ideological mentor of the BJP.