Pranab Mukherjee Doing RSS-Style Salute Fake Picture Goes Viral, Sharmistha Blames 'BJP/RSS Dirty Tricks’

New Delhi, June 7:  Pranab Mukherjee's daughter and Congress leader Sharmistha Mukherjee tonight said that as she had feared and cautioned her father against, the "dirty tricks department" of the BJP-RSS was at work in full swing, after a morphed picture was circulated on social media showing the former president raising his hand in salutation like the RSS leaders and cadres.

Sharmistha Mukherjee was vehemently opposed to the former president visiting the RSS headquarters and took to Twitter yesterday to express her disapproval of it.

"See, this is exactly what I was fearing and warned my father about. Not even few hours have passed, but BJP/RSS dirty tricks dept is at work in full swing!" she said, responding to a tweet showing a "morphed" picture of Pranab Mukherjee doing the salutation along with RSS leaders and cadres at the RSS headquarters in Nagpur today.

Sharmistha Mukherjee had yesterday said her father was giving the BJP and the Sangh a handle to plant false stories. "Hope @CitiznMukherjee now realises from todays' incident, how BJP dirty tricks dept operates. Even RSS wouldn't believe that u r going 2 endorse its views in ur speech. But the speech will be forgotten, visuals will remain & those will be circulated with fake statements.

"@CitiznMukherjee By going 2 Nagpur, u r giving BJP/RSS full handle 2 plant false stories, spread falls rumours as 2day & making it somewhat believable. And this is just d beginning!" she said on Twitter. The former president's official Twitter handle is @CitiznMukherjee.

Her outburst came soon after rumours about her joining the BJP cropped up ahead of Mukherjee's visit to Nagpur tomorrow. She dismissed such "rumours" of her joining the BJP as "false" and alleged they were the handiwork of BJP's "dirty tricks department". She said she would rather leave politics than quit the Congress.