RSS backs Advani's yatra

Dismissing reports that it was against senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Lal Kishenchand Advani's proposed National Integration Yatra, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh on Monday said it will extend full support to any effort to create public awareness against the threat to national unity and integrity.

In a strongly-worded statement from Nagpur, its chief K Sudarshan asserted there was "no question of the RSS opposing" the twin yatras of Advani and party president Rajnath Singh with the objective of making people aware of "the unbridled Muslim appeasement and the threat it posed to national unity and integrity."

Without directly extending support to Advani's yatra, he recalled that the recent RSS meeting in Nagpur had passed resolutions on the dangers posed by minority appeasement to national unity and integrity and said "any effort to create public awareness in this regard will have our support."

Advani had announced the twin yatras in the wake of the Varanasi blasts on March 7.

Onkar Singh adds from New Delhi

In a statement released from New Delhi through former RSS spokesman Ram Madhav, Sudarshan said: 'Some newspapers have printed baseless stories and dragged my name into the stories on Advani's visit to Nagpur on March 10 and 11. I am deeply pained by such reports.'

'Ajay Umat of Dainik Bhaskar did not contact me, Mohan Bhagwat or Advani and he wrote the entire story. This is concoction and there is not an iota of truth in it,' he said.

He, however, admitted that Advani did have lunch with him at the Nagpur RSS headquarters where Mohan Bhagwat was also present.