RSS controls government, says Congress

The Congress on Thursday criticised the meeting of RSS and BJP leaders here and said the central government was controlled by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

"Ministers of the government giving presentations to non-elected members of a supposedly non-political organization and getting appraised by the RSS for the work that they are doing is nothing but grave travesty of democracy," Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said in a statement.

"It confirms that the RSS is controlling this government and its ministers are answerable to RSS rather than being accountable to the people of India. This explains why the prime minister has remained mum through all the scams, the slide in the economy and the rapid fall in development of the country," he said.

The RSS and ministers of the government are holding a three-day coordination meeting here that began on Wednesday.

Surjewala said a constitutionally elected government was being held captive to the diktats of an "extra-constitutional, divisive and fascist organization like RSS".

"It only goes on to prove that the government of the day is neither run by the elected representatives of the people nor is it guided by the idea of welfare of the people," he said.

"It is run by ministers who report to and take orders from an organization - the RSS - that does not believe in India as defined by the constitution. In that sense, this entire drama is a grave mockery of the constitution itself," he added.