“Congress is finished,” thundered All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi at a gathering in Hyderabad on Friday evening.

Owaisi, the 49-year-old MP from Hyderabad, launched a blistering attack on the Congress over former president Pranab Mukherjee’s recent visit to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) headquarters at Nagpur.

“A man who spent 50 years of his life in Congress and was President of India visits the RSS headquarters. Do you still have hopes from this party?” he said at the gathering held at the historic Mecca Masjid of the Telangana capital.

Criticising Mukherjee for his decision, Owaisi reminded the gathering of Sardar Patel’s observation about the RSS after Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination by Nathuram Godse.

“We would like to tell Pranab Mukherjee, RSS, BJP, Congress, India and Hindu secular brethren that when Nathuram Godse shot Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Patel had said that RSS people were celebrating,” Owaisi reportedly said.

In a politically significant turn on 7 June, Mukherjee addressed RSS karyakartas at the ‘Tritiya Varsh’ event in Nagpur where he gave lessons on Indian nationalism, ancient Indian culture and tradition, the concept of patriotism, secularism, and tolerance to the cadres of an organisation which is the ideological parent of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Praising Jawaharlal Nehru, Mukherjee said the nationalism of the first Prime Minister of India was not bound by religion or language. In the same breath, he also praised the nation-unifying task undertaken by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel following India’s freedom in 1947.

“As Gandhi ji explained, Indian nationalism was not exclusive nor aggressive nor destructive,” the former President said referring to Mahatma Gandhi.

“Any attempt at defining our nationhood in terms of dogma and identities or religion, region, hatred and intolerance will only lead to dilution of our identity,” he warned at the gathering attended by the entire top brass of the RSS.

He called for an end to the “violence around us” and stressed on the need for “peace, harmony and happiness and the necessity of dialogue in public discourse”.

Read More: Pranab Mukherjee gives a lesson in tolerance, secularism, nationalism to RSS

Before arriving for the event, Mukherjee paid tributes to RSS founder KB Hedgewar at his memorial in Nagpur. Writing in the guest book, Mukherjee hailed Hedgewar as “a great son of Mother India” – a description some took umbrage to.

“Today I came here to pay my respect and homage to a great son of Mother India,” Mukherjee wrote in the visitor’s book as he visited Hedgewar’s birthplace here.