Rahul Gandhi is a liar: RSS should actually stop him

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on December 14 had egg on his face after his allegation that he was stopped by RSS workers from entering the Barpeta Satra – a 16th century Vaishnavite monastery – during his two-day Assam visit on December 12, was refuted by none other than the head of the monastery. Basistha Sarma, burha-satriya or head of the monastery, clarified that he, along with some Congress functionaries, waited for over four hours to receive Rahul but he chose to bypass the historic temple and took a different route.

The RSS, too, rubbished Rahul's allegation as “totally baseless” but targetted Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi and accused him of trying to cook up a story in view of the forthcoming Assembly elections.

Is Rahul lying in order to defame the RSS? If he indeed is lying, then the RSS should have blocked his entry into the temple as the Nehru-Gandhi scion deserved this treatment. According to local reports, the Congress vice-president skipped the temple visit because "he had not taken a bath", was not wearing a dhoti and that was more than four hours behind schedule. The first two reasons are flimsy. The real reason seems to be Rahul's delay. Concocting a lie and blaming the RSS to evade the ire of the local people does not become a leader of his stature.

The RSS workers are being accused of doing something which they are not even remotely associated with. The BJP has already dubbed him as a “lying machine” in the National Herald case.

Instead of defaming the RSS, it is Rahul whose credibility is getting eroded by spreading canards. It was highly myopic on the part of the Congress vice-president to level such a wide allegation which did not have any basis. Didn't he think that in this age of highly active social media, his lies could be exposed and he will have to face embarrassment? And the same has happened. Barpeta Satra was trending on Twitter with not a single post supporting Rahul.

Rahul, along with the Assam chief minister, did visit the temple during his return trip and there was no protest then. As it is, Rahul does not enjoy the image of a serious politician. The National Herald case and the latest lie about the Assam temple fiasco will further erode his reputation.

Last week, it was Rajya Sabha member Kumari Selja who created an unnecessary controversy and was responsible for disruption of the upper house by raking up an issue about her caste, which she could not substantiate. She alleged that she was asked about her caste on a visit to the old Lord Krishna temple in Dwarka, Gujarat when she was a Union minister.

However, finance minister Arun Jaitley, who is leader of the upper house, called her bluff and revealed that let alone not complaining, she had, on her visit, said very complimentary words in writing about the temple itself in the visitors' book. When the minister pointed this out, Selja changed the venue and said the incident did not happen at the main Dwarka temple but at Bet Dwarka. This led power minister Piyush Goyal to remark that she was lowering the level of debate and this was another incident of "manufactured problems and discrimination". However, just to allow smooth functioning of the house, Goyal later expressed regrets for his remarks.

These recent developments underscore how Rahul and his colleagues in the Congress are hatching conspiracies to defame the ruling BJP-led NDA government at the Centre through blatant lies and other unjust means. However, they are being clever by half and this will prove to be counter-productive in the long run.