Cong Min During Emergency To Be Chief Guest At RSS Event on June 5
Nagpur: The
(RSS) will have Arvind Netam, a former
who was part of late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's cabinet during the Emergency period, as chief guest for the closing ceremony of the organization's final stage training camp for its volunteers on June 5.
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Netam, a tribal leader from Chhattisgarh, was minister of education from 1973 to 1977, which also covered the Emergency period. He formed an outfit Hamar Raj Party in Chhattisgarh in 2023. He will be sharing the dais with RSS sarsanghachalak (chief) Mohan Bhagwat during the event.
Under the changed nomenclature, the camp is now known as Karyakarta Vikas Varga 2. Earlier known as Tritiya Varsha Sangh Shiksha Varga, this is the final part of the volunteers' training and is held in Nagpur.
Talking to TOI, Netam said he was always open to different ideologies. He had met the sarsanghachalak recently during the latter's visit to Chhattisgarh. A number of issues related to tribals, including religious conversion, were discussed. The focus on tribal issues has decreased in the current times. The gap between the Sangh and tribals needs to be filled, he said. "I believe, Sangh can take up the concerns to the right forum," he told TOI.
"Nowadays, it is often said that a section of tribals don't identify themselves as Hindu. Whether this trend existed prior to 1947 is among the issues that need to be addressed," he said. "Recently, I also came close to the RSS. I have accepted that some of my earlier viewpoints were not right," he said.
Netam was a veteran Congress leader during the times of unified Madhya Pradesh. He became a member of Parliament for the first time in 1971 and in 1973 went on to become a minister during Indira Gandhi's regime.
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Regarding the Emergency, he says censorship of newspapers was a wrong decision by the Congress. "If it had not been so, perhaps the party's future might have been different," says Netam.
Earlier, former President and veteran Congressman Pranab Mukherjee too had been chief guest for the training camp's closing ceremony.
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