Former president Pranab Mukherjee will be the chief guest at the valedictory session of the ‘Tritiya Varsh Varg’ or the Third Year Course organised by the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) in June this year. The Sangh leadership invites eminent people every year for the annual event held at its headquarters at Reshim Bagh in Nagpur.

“We have invited the former President of India and in fact he has given his consent for participating in the program,” RSS Akhil Bhartiya Prachar Pramukh Arun Kumar told News18.

The details of the former president’s program are still being worked out.
 

It is a convention that the chief guest at the Tritiya Varg Varsh also gives the valedictory address to mark the culmination of yearly training programs run by the RSS.
 

Sources in the former president’s office told News18 that the RSS has indeed sent an invite to Mukherjee. However, they did not confirm his participation in the event, which is likely to be held on June 7.

The invite to Mukherjee, an avowed Congressman during his years in active politics, is being viewed with renewed interest in political circles.

Pranab Mukherjee’s participation in the RSS event, if the former president does accept the invite, may cause some unease within the Congress, especially for a party which has maintained an arms distance from the organisation it has been fighting ideologically with since Independence.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi has minced no words about his party’s stand on the RSS. In fact, he is currently facing a defamation suit for having allegedly accused the RSS of being responsible for Mahatma Gandhi's assassination.

While in office, Pranab Mukherjee had also invited RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat for lunch at Rashtrapati Bhavan.