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NEW DELHI: Congress veteran P Chidambaram urged former President Pranab Mukherjee to hold a mirror to RSS during his upcoming visit to the saffron headquarters even as more party leaders expressed surprise that the “secular” patriarch had accepted an invite from the “communal organisation” to be its chief guest.

Two days after Mukherjee’s nod to the RSS function became public, the controversy and debate on the issue continued to roil the political waters. Congress’s leader of opposition in Kerala assembly Ramesh Chennithala shot off a letter to Mukherjee urging him to cancel his visit that he called a “rude shock to secular minds”, after senior leader CK Jaffer Sharief made a similar plea in a letter on Tuesday.

Speaking at a function to release the book of Congress spokesman Abhishek Singhvi, Chidambaram said, “Now that he has accepted the invitation, there is no point debating why he accepted it. More important thing to say is, ‘Sir, you have accepted invitation, please go there and tell them what is wrong with their ideology.” Chidambaram said he would not have accepted the invitation from RSS.

His comment was part of the chorus from Congress quarters which either urged Mukherjee to not mince words at the RSS function or asked him to cancel the visit altogether. Some leaders like Abhishek Singhvi continued to urge people to not jump to any conclusion till the former President had spoken. He did not find anything amiss in Mukherjee agreeing to visit the RSS function.

