Pranab Mukherjee hails RSS founder Hedgewar as ‘great son of India’

Former President Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday hailed Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, the founder of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), as “a great son of Mother India”.

“Today I came here to pay my respect and homage to a great son of Mother India,” Mukherjee wrote in the visitor’s book as he visited Hedgewar’s birthplace here.

Mukherjee, a Congress party veteran, is in Nagpur to address the RSS cadre at the organisation’s final leg of three-year training programme called the ‘Tritiya Varsh Varg’.

His visit has raised many an eyebrow, including in his own party.

The RSS was banned on February 4, 1948 following the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. The ban was lifted on July 11, 1949 after then Sarsanghchalak M.S. Golwalkar gave an undertaking that the organisation would abide by the Indian Constitution.