A much-hyped news conference by Kerala governor Arif Mohammed Khan where he was to present “evidence” of an alleged attempt on his life by eminent historian Irfan Habib and others in 2019 ended up as a damp squib on Monday.

However, in the process, the governor unwittingly or otherwise confirmed the spread of the Sangh’s influence in the higher echelons of the republic.

When reporters asked about Khan’s meeting with RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat in Thrissur in Kerala on Saturday evening, the governor retorted: “Will a newspaper question it if I come to have tea at your place?”

Khan, who had called on the sarsanghachalak, asked: “Is RSS a banned organisation?”

Khan said there were people in various Raj Bhavans in the country who were openly and officially associated with the RSS. He said former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had declared that he was first a swayamsevak, and that Jawaharlal Nehru had invited the organisation to the Republic Day parade.

The governor added that he had addressed “at least” six RSS events and maintained a close relationship with the organisation since 1986 when it had supported him over the Shah Bano controversy.

Asked if he was speaking for the RSS, he said: “You can have that opinion. But remember, my association (with the RSS) started in 1986. They supported me on Shah Bano.”

Khan had resigned as minister of state from the Rajiv Gandhi government in 1986 after it enacted a law to reverse a Supreme Court judgment that upheld the divorced Shah Bano’s right to alimony.

Khan claimed that along with the RSS, the late CPM ideologue E.M.S. Namboodiripad too had supported him.

Khan said: “But after Namboodiripad, the Left changed its stance. They became supporters of the (Muslim) personal law board.”

“The RSS, however, consistently supported me. The Left supported me only till 1991. So, if they (the Left) change, I cannot be held responsible for that.”

On the purpose of the meeting with Bhagwat, which had triggered speculation about the RSS using the governor to undermine the state government, Khan said: “To wish him well. He had come to an area, which is part of the state which I head. I was in that area. I did not travel from Thiruvananthapuram.”

He added: "If he is there again, I will go and meet him."

CPM state secretary M.V. Govindan later said: "We respect the governor when he functions according to constitutional and legal provisions. But we don't have anything to comment when he says he has always been an RSS supporter and has been speaking for the RSS," he said.

CPI Rajya Sabha member Binoy Viswam tweeted: "Governor Arif Khan has entered in to a pact to mortgage the Raj Bhavan to work as the camp office of the RSS. The meeting with the sarsanghachalak gave him the courage to become 'holier than thou'. For him best option would be to resign the constitutional post and work as a swayamsevak."

The visuals Khan played before the media at the Thiruvananthapuram Raj Bhavan contained nothing to implicate either the nonagenarian Habib or anyone else.

Khan, who has crossed swords with the Left Democratic Front government on a range of issues including alleged nepotism in university appointments, has repeatedly claimed that an attempt on his life was made at the Indian History Congress at Kannur University in December 2019.

He had called the news conference to present "evidence" to buttress his allegation, directed principally at the 91-year-old Habib, then aged 88.

Khan had in the past called the eminent historian a "goonda" and Kannur University vice-chancellor Gopinath Ravindran a "criminal" over the alleged attempt on his life.

The governor had also accused chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan's personal secretary and former Rajya Sabha member K.K. Ragesh of preventing the police from stopping the protesters at the venue.

But the visuals, which Khan says were sourced from the Kerala public relations department and independent news channels, did not establish his allegations.

They only showed Habib and Ravindran standing up and moving behind Khan while the governor was trying to counter protests by teachers and students against his pro-CAA stand, and Ragesh rushing to the audience in an apparent attempt to calm them.

Hundreds of delegates had risen in protest and waved anti-CAA placards made from sheets of white paper when Khan alluded to Pakistan pacer Shoaib Akhtar's statement that spinner Danish Kaneria had faced harassment at the hands of a few teammates because he is a Hindu.

An unidentified delegate was heard shouting, "This is not Pakistan, but India," while Habib said: "If this is the kind of talk you are giving, please quote Godse and not Gandhiji."

The governor appeared to have changed his stand on the vice-chancellor, whom he had called a "criminal". On Monday, Khan said that Ravindran had stood between him and Habib when the historian tried to approach him.

"The vice-chancellor himself was there, standing between him (Habib) and me," he said.

When reporters asked a barrage of questions about the lack of evidence to prove his allegations, Khan merely said: "You are not right, because in (the) video you cannot see the whole thing."

Asked what had led him to accuse Ragesh of preventing the police from stopping the protesters, Khan shot back: "Where was the need for him (to step down from the dais and approach the audience)? Who is he?"

He then sought refuge in the protocol that dictates that no one should leave the stage or venue before the governor does. "Everybody on the stage was under instructions not to leave before the governor," Khan said.

Additional reporting by PTI