Karnataka Home Minister Priyank Kharge has asked the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to obtain formal permission for its proposed Vijayadashami route marches on October 25, saying that informing the Home Department or seeking police cooperation does not amount to approval.
In a post on X, Kharge said the police needed adequate time to plan personnel deployment, transport, food, traffic management, security and other logistical arrangements for the events. He said the proposed marches would involve public resources and urged the organisation to submit applications through the prescribed procedure and wait for formal approval.
“Merely ‘informing’ or telling the Home Department to ‘cooperate’ or ‘make necessary arrangements’ is not the same as obtaining permission,” Kharge said in the post. He asked the RSS to complete the prescribed application form and provide the required details before proceeding with the marches.
Kharge cited the RSS’ Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha Annual Report 2025-26, which he said recorded 562 route marches across Karnataka involving 2,21,963 uniformed participants. The minister said the police department would have considerable preparations to make if large numbers of participants were to march through Karnataka’s streets on the same day.
The minister also posted copies of letters submitted by RSS units to police stations in Bengaluru. One letter, dated October 15, from the RSS unit in Kamalanagar informed the Mahalakshmi Layout police station about a procession scheduled to begin at 9 am from a ground beside the Shiva temple on Pipeline Road. The proposed route would pass through Kempegowda Layout and Kasturi Layout before returning to the starting point.
Another communication to the Nandini Layout police station and traffic police referred to a route march in Laggere between 9 am and 12.30 pm. It proposed starting at 9.30 am from Gate-1 of the Apollo National School ground in Chowdeshwari Nagar, passing through several streets and concluding at Gate-2 of the school.
The letters sought police cooperation or notified the authorities about the proposed events, according to the report. Kharge’s intervention indicates that the state government is distinguishing between advance intimation and formal authorisation for public processions, with the latter linked to operational planning by the police and traffic authorities.
The issue also comes amid Kharge’s earlier claims that the RSS is an unregistered organisation and his requests for details of its revenues and expenditure. The RSS has maintained that registration is not necessary for everything that takes place in India.
The immediate administrative question is whether the proposed route marches will receive formal permission after the required applications and details are submitted. Police and traffic authorities will have to assess the routes, timings, security arrangements and likely deployment requirements before October 25.
