Mother tongue debate: Goa RSS chief accuses BJP of spreading rumours

Goa RSS chief Subhash Velingkar accused the BJP workers of spreading rumours that he was heading the movement favouring mother tongue as medium of instruction in schools out of vengeance after he was denied a ticket in Panaji by-poll last year.

Goa RSS chief Subhash Velingkar today accused the BJP workers of spreading rumours that he was heading the movement favouring mother tongue as medium of instruction in schools out of vengeance after he was denied a ticket in Panaji by-poll last year.

Goa RSS chief Subhash Velingkar accused the BJP workers of spreading rumours that he was heading the movement favouring mother tongue as medium of instruction in schools. (Praveen Bajpai/HT File Photo)

“Some of the BJP workers are spreading rumours that my active support to the agitation against the state government on medium of instruction issue is due to my failed ambitions to get a party ticket in Panaji by-polls,” Velingkar told PTI today.

“The Sangh cadre and people who know me are mocking this (rumours). They know that I was never interested in politics. RSS cadre always gives priority to Sangh activities rather than politics,” he said.

The Panaji by-election was necessitated after former Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar was elevated as Defence Minister.

“None of the BBSM leader have any party affiliation. Even if they had, it was long back. I never was a member of the BJP,” he said.

The RSS Goa chief is co-ordinator of Bharatiya Bhasha Suraksha Manch (BBSM) which is agitating against BJP-led state government, demanding that mother tongue be made medium of instruction in elementary education. They also opposed grants to English medium schools and demanded its withdrawal.

Velingkar said the political outfit will contest all the 40 constituencies in the 2017 Goa Assembly polls or support the party which pledges for the cause of mother tongue as the medium of instruction.