A Congress leader has played down the report that former President of India Pranab Mukherjee had not been invited to an Iftar Party organised by Congress president Rahul Gandhi.

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"Pranab da is a part and parcel of this party. If we are sending out invitations to every other party, why not him. There has been no directive from the party high command to not invite him,." the leader told DNA.

Earlier, a report that Mukherjee not receiving an invite for Gandhi's Iftar Party was doing the rounds.  

Zee News reported a number of high-profile guests have been invited, but names such as Mukherjee and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, and former vice president Hamid Ansari reportedly failed to make the cut, the report added.

Notably, the report of Pranab Mukherjee not being invited for the party comes just days after the former President attended an event of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in Nagpur. The acceptance of RSS invitation by the former President had invited sharp criticism from several corners, including senior leaders of the Congress party.

Just ahead of the event in Nagpur, senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel had tweeted that he “did not expect this from Pranab Da”. Mukherjee’s daughter Sharmistha Mukherjee had also taken to microblogging site Twitter, warning her father of the consequences of him attending the RSS event. She had said that words would be forgotten while pictures would remain, alleging that the BJP and the RSS might use the pictures of the event in future for political gains.

However, Mukherjee’s speech at the Nagpur event was later much appreciated, with the Congress party saying that he had shown the “mirror of truth” to the RSS.

Addressing a press conference after the event, Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala had said, “Pranab Mukherjee has shown the mirror of truth to the RSS by reminding them of India’s pluralism, tolerance, secularism and inclusiveness as an article of faith and soul of the country. He particularly highlighted the imperative need of freeing the public discourse from all forms of violence - physical and verbal, besides putting compassion, harmony and non-violence as the centre stage of our public life.”