RSS delayed India's independence: Goa Congress

PANAJI: In retaliation to BJP National Vice President Shivraj Singh Chouhan's accusations against late Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru for the delay in Goa's liberation from Portuguese rule, the Congress in the coastal state on Tuesday said the RSS had delayed India's independence.

Addressing a press conference here, state Congress president Girish Chodankar said that if the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh had been a part of the country's freedom movement, India might have won independence sooner from the British rule.

Chodankar added that the RSS had aligned with the colonial British during the freedom struggle and had no right to appropriate the freedom movement.

"They are trying to change history. If RSS was with the freedom struggle, probably India could have been independent earlier. But RSS were siding with the British."

"Ignorant BJP leaders are repeatedly invoking our late Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and killing him all over again. Nehru used the military to free Goa from Portuguese rule after all non-violent attempts failed," Chodankar said, justifying the delayed inclusion of Goa into the Indian Union in 1961.

On Sunday, while addressing party workers in Panaji, Chouhan, a three-time Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, had said that due to his wrong policies, Nehru had delayed the liberation of Goa and created the Kashmir conundrum by granting special status to Jammu and Kashmir.