Asserting that Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat’s stand that there is no need to respond to questions on registration of the sangh as “unacceptable”, Karnataka Home Minister Priyank Kharge on Tuesday said the government will wait for sometime and decide on the next course of action if there is no reply.

“The RSS cannot say that it will not reply (to the eight questions posed by him in a letter to Mr. Bhagwat) because they are being asked by the Karnataka government and not by Mr. [Priyank] Kharge as an individual,” the Home Minister told presspersons in New Delhi, a day after his letter to Mr. Bhagwat was released to the media.

Pointing out that Mr. Bhagwat’s remarks that there was no need to respond to questions on the legal status of RSS had been made at a convention of the sangh, Mr. Kharge said: “Whatever you say in front of swayamsevaks may be acceptable for them, but not for the government.”

He further said, “Till now, we had not officially asked the RSS to provide details on their legal status. But now we have done so. Let us see. I am optimistic that they would furnish these details as a national organisation.”

Mr. Kharge said he was ready to even visit Keshava Shilpa (the RSS State headquarters in Karnataka) if they want him to do so.

Mr. Kharge, in his capacity as Karnataka’s Home Minister, had written to the RSS chief asking him to depute authorised office-bearers to provide details on the legal grounds on which a massive organisation that could mobilise nearly 20 lakh people has been functioning. He had asked for details on its donations, taxes, and other related issues.

“The Akhila Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha, which is the highest decision-making body of the RSS, itself has stated in its report that the organisation had mobilised nearly 20 lakh people in Karnataka through its samajotsava programmes. In a country where a safai karamchari too needs to register himself, how can an organisation with such a magnitude operate without registering itself,” he wondered.

Taxpayers’ money

Stating that Mr. Bhagwat’s security expenses were being borne out of taxpayers’ money, he wanted to know if the taxpayers do not have a right to ask for legal status of the RSS. Similarly, alleging that the RSS had hired a law firm in the U.S. by paying a huge fee to lobby for itself and was building five-star kind of offices in India, he wondered if it was wrong to ask for details related to its donations and tax payment.

Referring to Mr. Bhagwat’s comments that even Hindu dharma (religion) is not registered, the Home Minister clarified, “I am not at all asking for registration for dharma. I am only asking for details of registration of RSS.”

Referring to the outfit’s support to the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, he said: “Under SIR you ask for documents throughout the country and ask what is wrong in asking documents. But when you yourselves are asked for documents by the Karnataka government, you are jittery and start finding faults.”