RSS PR coup: Pranab Mukherjee most high profile chief guest ever for this RSS programme

There is little doubt that the presence of former President Pranab Mukherjee at the RSS headquarters is a public relations coup by the Rashtriya Syayamsevak Sangh. It sent Twitter abuzz, prompted senior RSS functionaries to write in newspapers how inviting Mukherjee proved its democratic credentials. Television channels went into a tizzy with day long discussions on how intolerant are people criticising him for visiting the RSS headquarters.

But even die-hard RSS supporters find it difficult to remember names of the luminaries who graced the valedictory functions in the past of the Sangh Shiksha Varg, an annual training programme for RSS pracharaks.

Indeed, the former President is not the first Bengali-speaking Indian to grace the valedictory function. That honour went in 2016 to a journalist Rantidev Sengupta. And last year it was the former chief of the Nepalese Army, General Rukmangud Katawal.

It is easy to see why this has been a PR coup for the RSS when one takes into account people like Ashwani Kumar, part owner of the Punjab Kesari Group of newspapers, and a Vijayawada based industrialist Dr Ganga Raju, who have preceded Pranab Mukherjee as the chief guest.

Other eminent Indians have been Sri Sri Ravishankar and JP Rajkhowa, former Chief Secretary of Assam.

Mukherjee, who was criticised by several Congress leaders like Ahmed Patel and his own daughter Sharmistha Mukherjee for offering legitimacy to an organisation seen by many Congressmen as divisive, reached Reshambagh on Thursday afternoon and paid his tributes to the RSS founder KB Hedgewar and visited his home, escorted by the RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat.

‘Today I came here to pay my respect and homage to a great son of Mother India,” he wrote in the Visitors’ Book.