New Delhi, Jun 12 (TOI): As several Congress leaders questioned Pranab Mukherjee’s visit to the RSS headquarters, the saffron fountain-head’s weekly ‘Organiser’ said those who critical of the former President had overlooked the integrity and wisdom of an experienced and seasoned statesman who has been in public life for five decades.

“Our former president Pranab Kumar Mukherjee, in the wake of his scheduled visit to Nagpur on June 7 to address an RSS congregation, got unsolicited advice from all around.

Palaniyappan Chidambaram, former Union Minister, who has absolutely no political standing on his own, and Jairam Ramesh, the self-styled intellectual and former central minister, came to the ‘rescue’ of the former president, donning the mantle of Lord Sri Krishna in the battlefield of Kurukshetra, as if the former president was in a state of despondency and confusion, as was Arjuna at the war-front,” the weekly said in its latest edition.

“It is a great tragedy that Indian politicians are generally averse to studying anything, but the art of deception and subterfuges, to serve their selfish political ends,” it said recounting visits of several prominent personalities including Mahatma Gandhi to RSS events.

Meanwhile in the midst of speculation over whether Pranab Mukherjee would be invited for the Congress party’s Iftar, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said it would be “height of intolerance and an insult to the constitutional office”.

However, it was known only late in the evening that the former President had been invited to the Iftar party to be hosted by Congress chief Rahul Gandhi.