After the Allahabad High Court rejected his petition to stop Bhoomi Pujan for Ram Mandir at Ayodhya, Congress supporter and Rahul Gandhi’s aide Saket Gokhale tried a new drama today. Few hours after the High Court order came, Gokhale claimed that RSS was targeting him, but soon it was proved to be a lie.
Today evening, Saket Gokhale tweeted a video from his Twitter handle, claiming that RSS workers were chanting Jai Sri Ram outside his house. He also claimed that they had threatened his mother. He tagged Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh and Thane Police requesting ‘urgent assistance’.
Although around 7-8 people are heard chanting Jai Sri Ram in the video taken from several floors above the building, they were not in familiar RSS uniform, nor were they holding any banners of flags to identify them with any organisation. Moreover, those people were on the ground, while Saket Gokhale seems to be living in a floor several floors above the ground, so it is not clear how would they threaten his mother.
Later Saket Gokhale informed that police have registered an FIR on the matter after his complaint. He also informed that he has been provided protection by Thane Police. According to reports, a police team visited his home, and a case was being filed against those who protested outside his house.
After his tweet, several people on social media questioned his claims, asking how did he know that they are RSS workers. Some people said that they are his neighbours, and they don’t belong to RSS. To clarify the matter, we contacted RSS office bearers.
OpIndia talked to Jeetendra Jore, RSS official in Thane district. Dismissing the allegations made by Saket Gokhale, he said that RSS has nothing to do with the incident. He said that at present RSS workers are busy with volunteering for Coronavirus, and they have no time to get involved with such a person who issues threats and gets scared himself on Twitter.
Jeetendra said that they don’t even have time at present to even focus on such matters. ‘Who is Saket Gokhale, we don’t know. May be he wants some publicity by taking the name of Sangh, may God give him the wisdom to do noble things,’ he said.
It is ironical that Saket Gokhale keeps criticising Hinduism and Hindutva, keeps threatening RSS and BJP. He keeps saying about fighting against RSS and BJP, but when half a dozen youths from his neighborhood chant Jai Sri Ram, he got so scared that he immediately sought assistance from police and the state home minister, and takes police protection.
It may be noted that those people outside Saket’s Mira Road house were only protesting against him by chanting slogans, a basic democratic right in a democracy. But in Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress ruled Maharashtra, an FIR was registered just for this, because the complaint was filed by a well-known Congress supporter.
While the Congress supporter is busy maligning RSS, the organisation is running a massive operation to combat Coronavirus in his state, the state worst hit by the Chinese virus, apart from other states on the country. During the pandemic, lakhs of Swayamsevaks are giving their services in the fight against the disease. Apart from distributing foods to those who have lost livelihood due to the lockdown, RSS and its affiliate organisations are also conducting screening for Coronavirus symptoms. Several Swayamsevaks have even got infected with COVID-19 while volunteering.
