Now RSS bomb hits Congress in Kerala

The controversy over Rashtriya Swaymsewak Sangh's Sarsanghchalak K S Sudershan's statement that his organisation had actively aided the Congress during the 2001 Assembly polls in Kerala and also helped senior Congress leader Vayalar Ravi continued today.

While the Congress denied the statement, the RSS was more realistic. RSS spokesperson Ram Madhav said the organisation's support to the Congress in the Assembly polls "was necessary to defeat the CPI(M), which has been behind the killing of many RSS and BJP workers."

"It is a Catch-22 situation for us in Kerala, especially since both the parties are anathema to us, but at that time it was necessary to defeat the CPI(M)," said Ram Madhav.

Madhav also said Ravi had himself asked for support from the RSS for a bye election, 'but he approached us late in the night, and our prant pracharak asked him to come back in the morning,' he said.

The Congress said that both contentions were wrong. 'This is an allegation which is baseless. Mr Ravi himself has rejected it,' Congress spokesperson Anand Sharma said. He pointed out that RSS chief KS Sudarshan's statement 'compounded his own organisation and led to confusion.'

According to the Congress, the RSS was not quite sure what it was saying since contradictory information was being put out by different party leaders.

The Congress has latched to a statement given by spokesperson Mohanan, who has claimed that Ravi never came to ask for votes during the 2001 election, but he had approached a an RSS kendra to win a by-election for himself sometime during the 1990s.

However, sources in the Congress indicated that there could be some inter-party rivalry at play in the whole affair, with fingers being pointed in the direction of suspended Kerala Congress leader and former Pradesh Congress President Muraleedharan.

Muraleedharan who has been suspended for organising three rallies against Keral Chief Minister Ommen Chandy, is in the process of putting together a break-away faction and any dissidence in the party would help him, sources said.