Nathuram Godse was RSS member? Pawan Khera cites Savarkar kin’s Pune court claim

Senior Congress leader and MP Pawan Khera has reignited the political debate over Nathuram Godse’s alleged association with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), citing a statement reportedly made by a grand-nephew of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar before a Pune court.

Khera claimed that Savarkar’s grand-nephew told the court that Godse, who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi, was a member of the RSS. The Congress leader said the statement was important in the context of the RSS’s longstanding position on Godse.

“The RSS has spent a little over 78 years disowning Godse,” Khera said in a post on X, adding that the statement by Savarkar’s grand-nephew was a “stinging slap” to the organisation.

Khera’s remarks come against the backdrop of a defamation case involving Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in Pune.

Godse assassinated Mahatma Gandhi on January 30, 1948. He was later tried and sentenced to death, and was executed in November 1949.

The wider controversy also comes shortly after the Supreme Court quashed a criminal defamation complaint and summons issued against Rahul Gandhi by a Lucknow Magistrate court over his alleged remarks against Savarkar during the 2022 Bharat Jodo Yatra.

A bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Sheel Nagu quashed the complaint and the Magistrate’s orders after taking note of the Uttar Pradesh government’s failure to disclose the requisite sanction in the case.

The case stemmed from remarks allegedly made by Gandhi at a press conference in 2022, where he referred to Savarkar as a “servant of the British” and alleged that he received a pension from the British.

The Supreme Court said that, based on the affidavit filed by the Uttar Pradesh government, there was no disclosure of the required sanction. It subsequently quashed the complaint and the orders passed by the Magistrate.

Khera’s latest remarks have now brought the question of Godse’s alleged RSS association back into the political spotlight, with the Congress leader arguing that the statement made before the Pune court challenges the organisation’s position on the issue.

With ANI inputs