BHOPAL, 3 March 2003 — Piqued by the “misinformation” being spread about him and his father, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh has decided to sue the Hindu fundamentalist organization Rashtriya Swyamsevak Sangh (RSS).
The RSS, in the backdrop of controversy over the unveiling of V.D. Savarkar’s portrait in Parliament’s Central Hall, had said both Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh and his father were Savarkar’s protégés.
Singh said that “there is a limit that should be observed in public life. The RSS is opting for falsehood to defame me. My lawyers will send a notice to RSS spokesman Ram Madhav, who was quoted by an agency spreading the ‘falsehood’, within a week.”
Madhav was quoted by an agency as demanding that the Congress party come clean on Savarkar because of Digvijay’s alleged assertion that he believed in Savarkar’s brand of Hindutva. “Not only was Singh’s father an MLA representing Savarkar’s Hindu Mahasabha, Singh himself headed the Bhopal municipality as a Mahasabha nominee when Savarkar was alive,” Madhav said. The RSS-BJP has already used Digvijay’s tilt toward banning cow slaughter as “proof” of its belief that Hindutva was India’s mainstream ideology.
Digvijay rejected Madhav’s claim that his father represented the Hindu Mahasabha as an MLA. “My father was in Congress until 1947. He quit Congress responding to Mahatma Gandhi’s call to abandon the organization. He then remained an independent.”
He said Madhav had lied in saying he (Digvijay) was a councilor in Bhopal representing the Hindu Mahasabha. “I won as an independent candidate from Raghaogarh,” he pointed out.
