Jan Sangh, RSS were "collaborators" of the British: Cong

New Delhi, Aug 19 (PTI) Irked by Prime Minister NarendraModi’s remarks over adversities faced by BJP, Congress todayhit back, accusing the ruling party’s erstwhile avatar the JanSangh and RSS of being "collaborators" of the British duringthe freedom struggle. Targeting the Prime Minister for "trivialising" thefreedom struggle, the party said that Modi should not onlytake back his "shameful" statement that BJP had faced moreadversities in independent India as compared to what Congressdid during the British rule, but should also apologise. "They were collaborators of the British," the party’ssenior spokesman Anand Sharma said, making a scathing attackon Jan Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mookerjee, the Sangh Parivarand Veer Savarkar. He claimed that Mookerjee wrote to the then BengalGovernor on how to combat the Quit India movement. "It does not behove the Prime Minister to lower thedignity of his office by making a statement which is factuallyincorrect and an insult to the freedom fighters, to MahatmaGandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabhbhai Patel and thousands ofothers who made manifold sacrifices during India’s nationalstruggle," he said. Seeking to puncture the Prime Minister’s statement, hesaid that BJP has been in power at the Centre or has been partof the governments there or an outside supporter for 13 longyears and that was the time that Nehru spent in jail duringthe British rule, Sharma said. "The British Home Department file from 1942 has all thecirculars from RSS. The Bombay Home Secretary said the Sanghhas scrupulously kept within the law and refrained from takingany part in the disturbances of 1942," he said. He said that RSS decided to not take part in the QuitIndia Movement and it decreed that no member of the Sanghshould participate. This was there in a letter written by Mookerjee to theBritish Governor of Bengal, Sharma said. Noting that BJP and the Prime Minister have tried toappropriate Sardar Patel, he said that Patel’s views on RSScan be gauged through a official communique from theGovernment of India, which banned RSS and Hindu Mahasabha. "Post India’s independence, Modi ji needs to be remindedthat his colleagues and his party are direct beneficiaries ofIndia’s freedom, India’s Constitution, India’s democracy whichallowed and empowered him, his colleagues, his party…",Sharma said. PTI SPGSC