Rahul Gandhi, a day after he stepped down as the Congress president, was in Mumbai for a court hearing in a defamation case. He had two years ago made a statement blaming the BJP-RSS ideology for the murder of journalist-author Gauri Lankesh in Bangalore in September 2017. Local RSS activist and criminal lawyer Dhrutiman Joshi had then filed the suit against him in 2017.

In the late 1990s, a very young Joshi meandered into a shakha near his home at Hindu Colony, in Dadar. The visit was the first of many. The RSS fired Joshi's imagination and in 2002, Joshi (then 13), joined the RSS.