The confession of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh pracharak Swami Aseemanand about, his involvement in the blasts in Hyderabad's historic Mecca Masjid, Ajmer's Khwaja Moinuddin Dargah and many other places, has surprised his followers and detractors alike.
Terror activities of some right-wing groups and Maoist violence will be high on agenda at the Chief Ministers' conference on internal security to be inaugurated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on February 1.
The Vishwa Hindu Parishad on Sunday accused the Congress-led government of trying to "malign the image of Hindu leaders by terming them as terrorists" and claimed it was the 'greatest lie' that Swami Aseemanand has confessed to the Samjauta Express blast."We are trying to enlighten the people. If the Congress tries to entangle Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Vishwa Hindu Parishad leaders, then a movement will be started against them (Congress)," said Ashok Singhal
Reacting to news reports that the Congress party in its plenary session is likely to demand for a Central Bureau of Investigation probe against the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh links to terror attacks organised by the radical Hindu organisations, BJP Vice President Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said that this was just a desperate attempt by the United Progressive Alliance government and the Congress party to divert the attention from corruption issue.
The VHP has backed its Hindutva partner RSS in criticising forme PM A B Vajpayee and BJP chief L K Advani.
A petition making a shocking revelation was filed before the Ajmer and Bhopal courts recently alleging that the National Investigation Agency had allegedly tried to bribe two accused to name three senior Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leaders in the murder of Sunil Joshi, an accused in the Samjhauta blasts case.
Alleged Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh activist Sunil Joshi wanted to kill Justice U C Banerjee who headed an inquiry commission on Godhra train burning case, and had even conducted reconnaissance of his house in Kolkata, according to a witness in the 2006 Malegaon blasts case.
As the Janata Dal - United appears set to part ways with the Bharatiya Janata Party over Narendra Modi issue, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has said his appointment as the Election Campaign Committee head does not mean he is the prime ministerial candidate.
Bharatiya Janata Party President Rajnath Singh on Tuesday denied reports that the party was under pressure from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh over the crisis triggered by the resignation of senior leader L K Advani from all party positions.
It is for the third time in eight years that Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani has resigned from top party posts including once over the huge controversy over his praise of Pakistan's founding father Mohammed Ali Jinnah.
Four of the five accused named in the Ajmer Dargah blast chargesheet filed by the Rajasthan Anti-Terrorist Squad have links with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, an ATS official said.
As a little child, no one expected him to climb the political ladder in such a fashionable manner. However, almost 65 years later, Narendra Modi will become the 14th prime minister of India. His climb was not an easy one. From the small village of Vadnagar in Gujarat, he first joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and served the organisation diligently. He then joined the BJP in 1987 and was handed the tasks of carrying out rallies. He was the instrumental force in ensuring that Atal Bihari Vajpayee became the prime minister in 1999. Rediff.com tries to piece Modi's life from childhood to the moment he grabbed headlines and showed promise of being the next prime minister -- the time he was elected as Gujarat's chief minister for the first time in 2001.
'No one is propagating RSS ideology as a government officer.'
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh on Tuesday said the revolt by B S Yeddyurappa seeking reinstatement as Karnataka chief minister was "very serious", even as the Bharatiya Janata Party president Nitin Gadkari went into a huddle with Mohan Bhagwat and other top leaders of the organisation in Nagpur.
Addressing an event in Jaipur, the RSS leader said, "The term 'Hindu' has already entered our Constitution and country. It is a fact of history. Hindu is an identity and a culture to which people belong."
The cellphone of a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leader was used by operatives of banned Tamil Nadu terror outfit Al-Ummah to allegedly trigger the blast near the Bharatiya Janata Party office in Bangalore.
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has condemned a "totally false and baseless propaganda" by certain media organisations that the Supreme Court pulled up its chief Mohan Bhagwat on Wednesday during the hearing of a case in connection with the Malegaon blasts. "During the hearing in the Supreme Court, there was not even a mention of Bhagwat's name," RSS publicity chief Manmohan Vaidya said in a statement.
Kamal Chauhan, a disgruntled Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh worker arrested by the National Investigation Agency, had planted bombs on board Samjhauta Express in 2007 after undergoing training in arms and explosives in Haryana and Madhya Pradesh, the agency claimed on Tuesday.
Pramod Muthalik, the founder of the Shri Ram Sena whose activists attacked a pub in Mangalore and assaulted a group of women, says they will continue to 'safeguard Indian culture'.
The big question today is, who represents the movement. We don't know who represents the movement for a separate state. We do not even know if there is a leadership that will do right by Telangana and do right by the Indian Constitution, says Jyotirmaya Sharma, scholar
On a day when Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi was inducted into the Bharatiya Janata Party's Parliamentary Board, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's chief Mohan Bhagwat raked up the issue of Ram Mandir in Ahmedabad, expressing the desire to build a glorious 'Shree Ram Mandir'.
The National Investigation Agency, which is probing the mysterious murder of former Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangha activist Sunil Joshi -- a suspect in the Samjhauta blasts case -- have an uphill task ahead of them.
Reacting sharply to the demand made by various Muslim outfits in the country that author Salman Rushdie should not be allowed to enter India, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh spokesperson Ram Madhav has described it as outrageous as it seeks to curtail Rushdie's right to travel, as the celebrated author is not visiting India to take part in a political event. Onkar Singh reports.
Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, accused in the Malegaon blast case, has filed an application in the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act court.Thakur has requested the court to direct the probe team, which is scheduled to take her to Bhopal in connection with the murder case of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh activist Sunil Joshi, to let her travel in an air-conditioned compartment. Sunil Joshi's name had cropped up during the investigation of the Malegaon blasts case.
Only in the event of the RSS managing to force Modi into accepting a consensual candidate, will the party not continue to 'being' the 'next Congress', observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
The Bharatiya Janata Party and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh top brass on Tuesday held a meeting, lasting over five hours, to discuss issues of mutual concern but the prime ministerial candidate and the Ram temple at Ayodhya issues did not come up during the parleys.
Questioning Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front chairman Yasin Malik's recent decision to share the stage with Hafiz Saeed, the mastermind of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, in Islamabad, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leader Ram Madhav on Tuesday said the Centre should take due note of this act and take very strong measures to send a message to him and persons of his ilk.
The election took place at the two-day annual meeting of the Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha, the Sangh's highest decision-making body that began here on Friday.
Dr S Q R Ilyas, head of the BMAC and a senior member of the board, feels that the Sangh Parivar should not have raked up the Ram temple issue. In a candid chat with rediff.com's Vicky Nanjappa, Dr Ilyas said the recent proclamation by the RSS, VHP and BJP was a desperate measure to rake up the issue of Hindutva once again
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat on Thursday backed the BVishwa Hindu parishad's resolution for building a Ram temple in Ayodhya, saying its construction is like establishing the 'Indian identity'.
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh on Thursday said it had no "official link" with Anna Hazare's anti-corruption movement and nobody had sought its support for the campaign.
The story of how Rajnath Singh was named as the new BJP president is nothing short of a potboiler.
Why is the Congress worried about Rajnath Singh? Did the new BJP president upset the RSS's apple cart? Read on, and find out in this week's Dilli Gupshup.
At least 10 people, who were allegedly involved in a spate of terror attacks in different parts of the country, had links with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or its affiliated organisations, Union Home Secretary R K Singh said on Tuesday.
Congress leader Digvijay Singh on Saturday fired a fresh salvo at Sri Sri Ravishankar, suggesting a nexus between the spiritual leader and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh after he released a book containing speeches of Bharatiya Janata Party President Nitin Gadkari.
"They (BJP) should announce their leader. They are fighting like cats and dogs. We are having our 'Chintan Shivir' here, they can't even hold a 'Shivir' like this because they are the puppets of RSS what will they think. They are anxious, but they very well twisted the words and said that it's not Congress's 'Chintan Shivir' but the Congress is nervous. This is their thinking. The people have rejected them," Congress MP Mani Shankar Aiyar said.
Congress leader Dijvijay Singh on Monday alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party coming to the defence of Arvind Kejriwal in the controversy surrounding the transfer of money to his non-government organisation was proof enough of the alliance between Team Anna and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-BJP.
If Narendra Modi's forward march to Delhi is to be permitted then the president of BJP will be someone who is completely loyal to the RSS. That will improve Gadkari's chances though there is a serious lack on enthusiasm in the RSS on giving him a second term. Sheela Bhatt reports
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