Pranab Mukherjee rejects report that said his foundation is collaborating with RSS in Haryana
The former president said he will visit some villages in Gurugram to inaugurate projects on September 2.
Former President Pranab Mukherjee on Friday rejected a media report that claimed that his foundation was collaborating with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh for social work in Haryana.
Mukherjee is slated to visit some villages in Gurugram along with Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar to inaugurate projects on September 2. According to a report in The Economic Times, the former president had invited over 15 senior and junior-level RSS workers for the event. An RSS official had told the newspaper that the organisation would like to help Mukherjee’s foundation in social work in the state.
However, in a statement on Friday evening, Mukherjee’s office said there is “neither any existing collaboration, nor is there any such move in the offing”. The statement said he was visiting Gurugram on the invitation from the state government to inaugurate some projects started in the last two years. He acknowledged that he had adopted several villages under the Smartgram Project started in Haryana in 2016 – as claimed by the report.
Mukherjee had caused an uproar in June with his decision to accept an invitation by the RSS to address its new recruits in an event in Nagpur.