Rahul Gandhi Flags 'Unnecessarily Increasing' RSS Role in Sainik Schools

New Delhi: Leader of Opposition (LoP) in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday (August 4) told the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence that the involvement of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in running Sainik Schools across the country was "unnecessarily increasing".

Raising the issue during the meeting, Gandhi said private bodies linked to the Sangh were now handling affairs at several of these schools. He also claimed that some were being run by organisations owned by an industrialist considered close to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leadership. Gandhi reportedly referred to media reports while making this claim.

Committee chairman Radha Mohan Singh asked Gandhi to submit documents to back his claims adding that they would be forwarded to the ministry for further investigation, as per reports.

Meanwhile, BJP MP Sudhanshu Trivedi suggested the the committee should also look at how the schools were run before the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) came to power.

Also read: Control Over Education Is Critical for the RSS. The Sacking of Pradhan Is a Major Setback for It

The members attending the meeting also discussed listing of the organisations who have been allotted Sainik school under the partnership model, and the links of those organisations to be investigated.

Several reports quoting sources indicated that over 70 such schools have been allotted to Sangh-affiliated groups Vidya Bharati and Saraswati Sishu Mandir.

Gandhi left the meeting to attend a book launch event after making his submissions.

This is not the first time that Gandhi spoke about the involvement of the RSS in the education sector.

On July 29, after former Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned following a youth movement across the country, while participating in a debate on The Public Examination (Prevention of Unfair Means) Amendment Bill 2026 in the parliament, Gandhi said that "the RSS" ran the education ministry instead of Pradhan.

“The soul of the system has been captured by the RSS. Dharmendra Pradhan never ran the education ministry. The man and organisation that run the ministry is called the RSS,” he had said.

Further, the LoP pointed out that all the universities in the country had vice-chancellors who were affiliated with the RSS.

As per reports, during the meeting opposition MPs also flagged the growing involvement of private companies in defence PSUs. Officials from the defence ministry said the government was pushing indigenous firms and MSMEs in the sector and offered to call some of them before the committee. However, opposition members said MSMEs would not speak freely if the defence secretary also remained present.