Nagpur, June 8: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) on Friday issued a statement condemning the morphed photo of Pranab Mukherjee during RSS 'Tritiya Varsh Varg' (third-year course) event in Nagpur on Thursday. The statement by RSS comes hours after a morphed picture of the former President surfaced on social media.

In its statement, the RSS said that some divisive political forces have posted a morphed photo of the former president, Dr. Pranab Mukherjee standing in a prayer position with a folded hand during the recitation of Sangha Prarthana at yesterday's RSS function at Nagpur.

Dr. Manmohan Vaidya, Sah Sarkaryavah on Friday said, "We denounce and strongly condemn the lowly act of these divisive political forces who are deliberately trying to defame RSS". "These forces initially tried to create an opposition to make Dr. Mukherjee refrain from attending this function and now these frustrated forces are indulging in all such dirty tricks to defame RSS", the statement added.

After the morphed image went viral on social networking sites, the former President's daughter and Congress leader Sharmistha Mukherjee said she had feared and cautioned her father against, the dirty tricks of the BJP-RSS. "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, retweeting a tweet showing the "morphed" picture of her father at the RSS event.

On Thursday, Mukherjee addressed the concluding ceremony of RSS in Nagpur and gave a strong message on Nationalism to all the RSS workers. He said any attempt at defining the nationhood in terms of dogma and identities or religion, region, hatred and intolerance will only lead to dilution of our identity.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 08, 2018 05:09 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).