MUMBAI: An RSS sympathiser and historian has lost his 16-year-old column in a pro-RSS newspaper because he spoke to ET about the eating habits of top RSS leaders. Slamming the campaign that meat eating was anti-Hindu, columnist Dilip Deodhar had pointed out that many RSS chiefs used to eat meat. This statement has landed him virtually in the soup now.On July 22, during the height of the 'Hindus don't eat non-veg controversy', ET had carried a story on top leaders like Balasaheb Deoras and Mohan Bhagwat relishing non-veg food before becoming RSS chiefs, quoting Dilip Deodhar. This was in the context of an article that appeared in RSS affiliated magazine, Panchjanya, that claimed that eating non-veg food was an 'anti Hindu ' activity. Deodhar has now realised that his column in the pro-RSS newspaper, Tarun Bharat, that appeared in the last 16 years has been stopped after he spoke out against the anti-meat campaign."I am against duplicity in the RSS, I do criticise but my criticism is not negative, its constructive. The veg versus non-veg issue was giving the RSS a bad name and hence I spoke about how RSS was not against eating meat and even top RSS leaders used to consume meat. A few top RSS leaders congratulated me after I spoke but some who didn't understand the issue got upset and have tried to hit back by banning my column," said Deodhar.According to sources, at a meeting of the RSS leaders at Nagpur, the Paschim Kshetra Pracharak or western region in-charge of RSS, Ravindra Joshi, brought up the ET story and slammed Deodhar for criticising Panchjanya and also for bringing out in the open the personal food preferences of RSS leaders. After the meeting, it was decided to drop Deodhar's columns from Tarun Bharat. But the newspaper management denied any RSS intervention to stop the column.ET contacted Gajanan Nimdeo, editor of the Nagpur edition of Tarun Bharat where Deodhar's columns used to get carried. Nimdeo confirmed that the paper had decided to stop Deodhar's columns. "We stopped the columns 15 days back. We have not got any instruction from the Sangh to stop carrying it," said Nimdeo. He declined to comment any further on the issue. In spite of repeated attempts Ravindra Joshi was not available.