What ex-RSS chief Sudarshan said about Jinnah is right: Bhagwat

New Delhi, Aug.28 (ANI): Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) Mohan Bhagwat said on Friday that what his predecessor K.S. Sudarshan had said two days ago about Pakistan Founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah is right.

"What Sudarshanji said is right, RSS holds all in high esteem," said Bhagwat

He further said that the perception of the Muslim community about RSS is changing

Surdarshan said on Monday that Jinnah was committed to an undivided India.

"Jinnah had many facets. If you look at history, he was once associated with Lokmanya Tilak and was totally committed to undivided India," Sudarshan said when asked if he considered the Muslim League leader secular.

"And when Gandhiji started the Khilafat movement, with the idea that currently we are opposing the British and if Muslims join in then their support will help gain independence. But at that time Jinnah opposed it saying that if the Caliph in Turkey has been dethroned, what has India got to do with it. That time nobody listened to him, which saddened him. So, he quit the Congress and left for England and only returned in 1927.

"After returning in 1927, Britishers brainwashed Jinnah and prompted him to put forth the demand for a separate state of Pakistan for Muslims," Sudarshan added.

Sudarshan said that everybody knows history, and added had Gandhiji been adamant, like when he was on giving crores of rupees to Pakistan, then the partition would not have taken place. "But he did not do it because Nehru was his weakness."

Commenting on Singh's expulsion from BJP, he said: "It is an internal matter of the party."

RSS spokesperson Ram Madhav had then sought to clarify Sudarshan's remarks, saying the former Sangh chief did not mean to say that Jinnah wasn't responsible for the partition of the Indian subcontinent.

Bhagwat had on August 18 called for an end to factionalism in the BJP, the political wing of the Sangh Parivar, and said the party leadership should make way for younger leaders.

The expulsion of Jaswant Singh, two days after the launch of his latest book-Jinnah: India -Partition - Independence, has been criticised by senior leaders Arun Shourie and Yashwant Sinha. Shourie has called on the RSS to take over the leadership of the BJP. (ANI)