Bhopal: RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat on Wednesday visited Betul district jail and paid tributes to Sangh’s ideologue late Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar alias ‘Guruji’. Bhagwat visited barrack no. 1 of the district jail where Golwalkar was detained for about three months in 1949, after the organisation was banned following Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination. However, the state Congress objected to Bhagwat’s visit while terming it as violation of jail manual and an effort to glorify the member of the then banned organisation.
Earlier, Bhagwat along with other Sangh functionaries and BJP leaders visited barrack no; 1 of the district jail in Betul, located about 180 kms from Bhopal, at around 11 am. The RSS chief was in the barrack for about 20 minutes and paid tributes to Golwalkar. A portrait of Golwalkar with a garland on it was put up in the barrack. Pictures of some Hindu deities were also there along with Golwalkar’s portrait. A lamp was also lighted in front of the portrait. A shloka ‘Rashtraya swaha, Rashtraya idam na mam’ (I offer everything of mine to this nation. Now everything is the nation’s, not mine) was also written above the portrait.
RSS sah-sarkaryawah Suresh Soni, local MLA Hemant Khandelwal and other Sangh leaders accompanied Bhagwat. The RSS chief had reached here last evening to address a Hindu ‘sammelan’ in this tribal-dominated area. The Congress, however, was agitated over Bhagwat’s jail visit.
“BJP is trying to glorify Golwalkar, who was detained as a member of a banned organisation then. This is also a violation of jail manual. Only the family members, friends of a prisoner can visit the jail premises with prior permission of jail management,” Congress spokesman KK Mishra said. “The state government should clarify in what capacity Bhagwat visited the jail,” Mishra said.