New Delhi, January 06: CONGRESS General Secretary Digvijaya Singh was on Thursday dragged into a controversy following the publication of a photograph of his in a vernacular newspaper that showed him sharing the dais with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leaders at a Hindu meet.
The RSS was quick to go on the offensive as it alleged Singh — a vocal critic of the saffron outfit — of practising vote- bank and communal politics.
Not one to take things lying down, the Congressman rebutted the charges saying he took permission from the party high command before attending the event where he claimed to have had criticised the Sangh Pariwar.
To bolster his reputation as an RSS baiter, Singh questioned when was the last time the Sangh had praised him like it had done in the case of Anna Hazare in a recent publication.
Commenting on the photograph, RSS leader Ram Madhav said: “ This recent expose of the photograph is the reaffirmation of the age- old communal politics that the Congress has been indulging in right from the beginning.
“ They have no qualms or sense of shame in going to a particular platform for the sake of electoral dividends and in the same breath going and attacking them publicly for the sake of some other group’s votes.” Madhav further alleged: “ This is the kind of minority politics, communal politics that they have been indulging in right from the beginning. I don’t see anything more than that in this so- called controversial photograph.
I don’t believe he ( Digvijaya) has any faith in any particular ideology. He only has faith in his communal vote- bank politics.” Hitting back at the RSS, the former Madhya Pradesh chief minister said he was grateful to the Sangh and the BJP for their extensive research.
“ This Hindu sammelan ( congregation) was called by Kanchi seer Sankaracharya and I had gone to that conference with the permission of the Congress leadership,” Singh said.