Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has urged the Union government to reconsider its decision to name the new campus of the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology (RGCB) after Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, an idealogue of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). In a letter to Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Saturday, 5 December, Vijayan said that the institute is a premier research institution and “has been above political divides”.
On Friday, Dr Harsh Vardhan announced that the second campus of RGCB in Thiruvananthapuram will be named after RSS ideologue MS Golwalkar, as 'Shri Guruji Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar National Centre for Complex Disease in Cancer and Viral Infection'. He made the announcement at the curtain-raiser session of the sixth edition of India International Science Festival (IISF), which will be held online from 22 to 25 December. The event is organised by the RGCB. The announcement soon led to a controversy.