PRESSBUREAU
New Delhi: Karnataka home minister Priyank Kharge on Saturday (August 15) hit back at Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader B.L. Santhosh's assertion that members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) had protected the Kharge family from Razakars during Hyderabad state's integration with India. The state minister, who is the son of Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, said that it was not the RSS but the people in the region who were safeguarded by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Jawaharlal Nehru and the Indian Army
"The RSS did not come to protect us. The people of our region were safeguarded by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel and the Indian Army. The Indian Army came and protected us," Kharge said at a press conference in Kalaburagi. His remarks came in response to Santhosh who had at 'Akhand Bharat Sankalp Day' programme organised by the Hindu Jagarana Vedike said that when Kharge's family, including leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, faced attacks from the Razakars and had to flee to Kalaburgi in present Karnataka, the RSS workers had protected them from the Razakars. "You claimed that you protected the Kharge family. After Partition, so many communal riots erupted. In which communal riot did you protect and assist?" "Yes, our family were victims of communal riots. We were compelled to flee from there and come here. At that time, there was no one – no government, nothing. What did you do?" the Karnataka minister said in response on Saturday. Kharge also said that Operation Polo, the Indian military operation in September 1948 that led to the integration of the princely state of Hyderabad with India, was initiated by Nehru, Patel and the Indian Army. "Who carried out 'Operation Polo'? Was it the RSS? It was carried out by Patel, Nehru and the Army, not by the RSS," he said. "Don't live under the illusion that you helped everyone. RSS did not safeguard us." Kharge also said that the RSS had contributed to communal tensions in the country, and continues to be an organisation that generates communal riots. "After Nathuram Godse, Savarkar's disciple, inspired by RSS ideology, shot Mahatma Gandhi, there were riots in Kolkata and Delhi," he said. "You are an organisation that generates communal riots, not an organisation that comes forward to protect people when communal riots occur." Santhosh in his remarks had said that Kharge’s family had to flee and the RSS had helped protect them. "Your family had to flee the village, and your father had to flee with only the clothes he was wearing," Santhosh had said, directing his remarks to Kharge. While Kharge has been asking for the RSS to be registered, Santhosh had said that registration does not determine the organisation's existence.
At that time too, the RSS was not registered, and it is not registered even today. Registration does not determine its existence; it is an organisation working through the trust of millions of people," he said. This article went live on February fourteenth, two thousand twenty six, at three minutes past one in the afternoon.
