Sunil Ambekar
Credit: PTI Photo
New Delhi: After a news report suggested that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh hired American lobbyist Squire Patton Boggs to lobby officials in the US Senate and House of Representatives, the right wing body denied such an involvement.
“Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh works in Bharat and has not engaged any lobbying firm in United States of America,” Prachar Pramukh Sunil Ambekar said in a statement late Thursday.
An investigative news report in Prism stated that Squire Patton Boggs received $330,000 by the RSS and that this was the first such instance of the right-wing body engaging in lobbying in the US. The report also claimed that they hired the lobbyist without being listed as a foreign entity. This is in violation of lobbying disclosure requirements in the US.
The Congress attacked the RSS over the investigation, and said that it is not registered as an organisation in India. Congress General Secretary in-charge of communications Jairam Ramesh, in a post on X, said that a few days ago RSS Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat acknowledged that the Sangh is not registered and does not pay taxes.
“Now, we learn that the RSS has spent a significant amount of money to engage one of Pakistan’s official lobbying arms – the American law firm Squire Patton Boggs (SPB) – to espouse its interests in the US," Ramesh said in a tweet.
“This is hardly the first time that the RSS – with its long tradition of betraying the freedom movement, opposing Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Ambedkar, and attacking the Constitution and the national flag of India – has betrayed national interest. It is a pseudo-nationalist outfit,” he added, sharing a screenshot on X of the disclosures of US Senate lobbying that showed that Squire Patton Boggs had registered as a lobbyist for the RSS.