New Delhi- In a scathing attack on the RSS on its 100th anniversary, the Congress on Thursday cited excerpts from a book to claim that Mahatma Gandhi described the Sangh as a“communal body with a totalitarian outlook”.

The opposition party also cited a media report from 1948 that quoted a speech of India's first home minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel at a Congress session in Jaipur in which he vehemently criticised the RSS.

In a post on X, Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said Pyarelal was one of Gandhi's closest aides, being part of his personal staff for almost three decades, and became his secretary after the death of Mahadev Desai in 1942.

“Pyarelal's books on Mahatma Gandhi have become standard reference works. In 1956, he published the first volume of his book 'Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase'... brought out by Navajivan Publishing House, Ahmedabad. It carried a long introduction by the President of India Dr. Rajendra Prasad, as well as an endorsement by the Vice President Dr. S. Radhakrishnan,” Ramesh said.

The second volume appeared two years later, he said.

“On page 440 of the second volume, Pyarelal writes of a conversation between Mahatma Gandhi and one of his colleagues in which the Father of the Nation describes the RSS as a 'communal body with a totalitarian outlook',” the Congress leader said, adding that this conversation took place on September 12, 1947.

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