Priyank Kharge Draws Flak From Bihar BJP Leaders For Comment On RSS

BJP leaders in Bihar on Wednesday lashed out at Karnataka minister Priyank Kharge for threatening to "ban the RSS", the party's parent organisation, upon the Congress' return to power at the Centre.

Kharge, whose father Mallikarjun Kharge is the national president of the Congress, made the remark in the backdrop of RSS second-in-command Dattatreya Hosabale advocating that the words "secular" and "socialist" be dropped from the preamble of the Constitution.

When his response was sought on the Congress leader's remark, Union minister Giriraj Singh said, "The social service done by RSS is something a person like Priyank Kharge will be able to understand only in many lifetimes".

Singh, who represents Bihar's Begusarai Lok Sabha seat, also pointed out, "Indira Gandhi had tried to suppress the RSS and ended up being decimated herself".

The allusion was to the defeat of the Congress in Lok Sabha polls of 1977, while the ban on the RSS imposed during the Emergency was in force.

Notably, Kharge had defended his stance citing the examples of both Indira Gandhi and Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel, who had banned the organisation in 1948 after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.

Kharge's remarks were also pilloried by former Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad who said, "One cannot expect anything better from the son of Mallikarjun Kharge".

"However, he would still do better to mind his words and stay within his limits. Indira Gandhi had tried to crush the RSS and she got blown away," said the Patna Sahib MP.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)