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RSS chief lashes out at Congress, Sonia

Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh chief Professor Rajendra Singh today lashed out at the Congress leadership for seeking a "foreigner's" help to rescue the party and win the general election.

Addressing a RSS mahashibir in Nagpur on Sunday, he said Sonia Gandhi's entry into politics had betrayed the Congress's "helplessness." "It is a pity," the RSS sarsanghchalak said, that the 112-year-old party could not find an Indian to bail it out of trouble. Professor Singh did not mention Sonia by name, only describing her as a "foreign girl" married accidentally to an Indian while doing a course in England.

Sonia's rise, he said, had stemmed from the belief in some quarters that Indians had not yet overcome their slave mentality and had attraction for people with a white skin .

In his hour-long address, the RSS chief directed his cadres to work for the Bharatiya Janata Party's victory in the election. Without mentioning the BJP, he said the party which worked for the consolidation of Hindutva must win the election for better governance.

About 30,000 volunteers from the nine districts of Maharashtra's Vidarbha district participated in the camp held on 70 hectares of open ground at Khapri village, 12 kms from Nagpur.

The RSS chief warned against the increasing activities of Christian missionaries in India, especially in the North-East and called for an effective check on them. His attack on Christian conversions in the Sonia Gandhi context was not lost on the audience which included RSS general secretary Professor H V Seshadri and Rajya Sabha member Dilip Singh Judeo.

Professor Singh dismissed as unfounded the talk that the minorities would suffer under BJP rule. Referring to an interview with a television channel, he said he was asked about the fear of the minorities in the event of the BJP coming to power and his reply was that there would be "justice to all and pampering of none."

He said the word "secularism" was a misnomer in the Indian context. India never was and would not be a theocratic state. In fact, he said, a vast majority of Muslims were originally "Hindus being born and brought up in India."

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