RSS and crony capitalists colluding to control India, says Rahul Gandhi

In an all-out attack on the RSS, Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday accused the organisation of colluding with crony capitalists to capture India’s institutions in exchange for allowing getting hold of “all the business” in the country.

In an interaction with economist Kaushik Basu of Cornell University, the former Congress president likened the RSS with the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia and radical Islamist outfits who seek to control institutions to push their world view.

Read | Emergency was a mistake: Rahul Gandhi

“The crony capitalists figured out that the RSS is a sort of institution that can be used to capture the political system,” Gandhi said adding that the Gujarat model of development was “to pump thousands of crores” in the RSS.

“That is how they got turbocharged,” he said adding that the model was tried earlier with late Pramod Mahajan but failed.

Gandhi claimed that the trade-off was very much live in Saudi Arabia, where the Wahhabis control the institutional structures in Mecca and the royal family handled the finances from the oil business.

Also Read | Tamil Nadu should show the way to India in keeping out BJP: Rahul Gandhi

“The deal here is—RSS do whatever you can with India’s institutions, we will give the Prime Minister full media, social media access and the Prime Minister will give us all the business we need and together we will run the country,” the Congress leader said.