RSS trying to hijack Netaji as a Hindu nationalist leader: Tarun Gogoi

Guwahati, Jan 25: Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi today said RSS, which did not take part in Independence struggle, is trying to "hijack" Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose as a Hindu nationalist leader.

"On the day of declassification of Netaji files, RSS said Subhash Bose was their leader. They claimed that he was a Hindu nationalist leader. They want to hijack him," Gogoi said at a press conference here.

Netaji, he said, was the most secular freedom fighter of the country and he had never endorsed religious fundamentalism.

"RSS also wants to say that Sardar Vallabhai Patel was a Hindu leader. But he was the man who had banned RSS for killing Gandhiji. We all know who killed Gandhiji. Nathuram Godse was a RSS member," Gogoi said.

He criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for attacking his predecessor Manmohan Singh.

"No Prime Minister has attacked his predecessor as has Modi. I always appreciated Atal Bihari Vajpayeeji and said that I got more funds during his tenure than my predecessor.

"Personally Modi and I have best of relations but ideologically I am dead against him," Gogoi said.

About the coming Assembly polls in Assam, Gogoi said both BJP and AIUDF are indulging in communal campaigning to gain votes on the basis of religion.

The state government, he said, will issue a "white paper" on 15 years of Congress rule in Assam, on February 7.

PTI