Kharge questions RSS role in freedom struggle, defends public property Bill

Stepping up his criticism of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Home Minister Priyank Kharge questioned its role in India’s freedom struggle and challenged the organisation to name a single movement in which it had participated.

Speaking to press persons in Kalaburagi city on Saturday, Mr. Kharge said the freedom struggle was marked by several mass movements in which people from different sections of society participated. He said he could provide the names of 500 Congress members who had sacrificed their lives during the freedom struggle and challenged the RSS to furnish even 50 such names.

Mr. Kharge, referring to Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, said BJP leaders were unaware of the circumstances surrounding the honorific “Veer” attached to his name and claimed that Savarkar himself had adopted the title.

He also questioned the organisation’s role during the communal violence that followed Partition, asking what contribution it had made towards protecting people during the riots.

On the RSS’s legal status, Mr. Kharge said an organisation could not be subjected to a ban without first establishing its legal status. Referring to recent remarks by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and B.L Santosh that the organisation could not be banned, he said: “RSS cannot be banned” because, according to him, it was not registered. He questioned how an organisation could be banned if it was not formally registered.

Rejecting the BJP’s allegation that the proposed Karnataka Regulation of Use of Government Premises and Public Property Bill, 2026, which seeks to regulate the use of government premises and public property by organisations and groups, was aimed at the RSS, Mr. Kharge asked why the BJP was opposing the Bill without examining its provisions and pointed out that it did not name any organisation, association, institution or political party.

He said that the proposed law was intended to provide a statutory framework for regulating the use of public property in accordance with directions issued by the Supreme Court and High Courts. Organisations would continue to be free to conduct activities on private premises, but programmes, processions and gatherings on government land and other public property would be subject to permission from the Competent Authority.

“There is no question of banning any organisation,” Mr. Kharge said, asking the BJP to identify where the Bill proposed such a ban.

He said the government’s responsibility was to ensure that public spaces were used in a regulated manner and that the proposed provisions would apply to organisations irrespective of their registration status.

Dismissing the BJP’s claim that he feared the RSS, Mr. Kharge said he had no “RSS-phobia” and asserted that it was BJP leaders who were displaying what he termed “Priyank-phobia”.