Accusing Narendra Modi and BJP of trying to "hijack" Sardar Patel's legacy, Congress today questioned whether BJP or "Swayamsevak Modi" endorses Patel's view that the "communal poison of RSS" killed Mahatma Gandhi.
Union Minister Salman Khurshid also took a dig at Modi over his remarks that Patel should have been the first Prime Minister of India.
"Modi is too preoccupied with the thought as to who should be or should not be the Prime Minister. May be he can give us a list of those he wanted to be the PM," Khurshid said reminding the BJP leader that it was Patel who had banned RSS.
The party hit out at Modi on the Patel issue on a day, when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh shared dais with him in Ahmedabad at a function to inaugurate a museum dedicated to the life of India's first Home Minister and freedom fighter Patel.
"For the last few months, BJP is trying to usurp the legacy of Sardar Patel. History is witness to the fact that those who do not have any history of legacy try to appropriate the same of others. My advice to the Gujarat Chief Minister, who is the Prime Ministerial candidate of the BJP and a RSS Swayamsevak, is that he should study what the legacy actually is that he is trying to appropriate," Union Minister Manish Tewari told reporters.
"On September 9, 1948, Patel, the then Home Minister of the country had written to RSS founder M S Golwalkar in which the former had said that as a final result of communal poison, the country had to suffer the sacrifice of life by Mahatma Gandhi. Patel referred to communal poison spread by RSS that Golwalkar headed. Does Swayamsevak Modi agree with Patel or endorses his views RSS? Whose legacy they crave"? he said.
At the AICC briefing, party spokespperson P C Chacko said Patel was one of the tallest Congress leaders during the freedom movement and he "cannot be hijacked by BJP. If they think that they can hijack him through some propaganda or by erecting some statues, they will miserably fail. One should remember that it was the same Patel who had banned the RSS.
