Hours after former Congress president Rahul Gandhi said he will die but never apologise for speaking the truth as he is a Gandhi and not a Savarkar, Sanjay Raut, leader of the party’s ally in Maharashtra, the Shiv Sena, called Savarkar “God” and said there will be no “compromise” in respecting him. Raut, one of the architects of the Sena-Nationalist Congress Party-Congress coalition government in Maharashtra, took to Twitter, indirectly asking Gandhi to not “insult” Savarkar.
On Saturday, during Congress’s Bharat Bachao rally in New Delhi, Gandhi remarked, “My name is Rahul Gandhi, not Rahul Savarkar. I will never apologise for speaking truth and nor will any Congressman do so.” Gandhi’s statement was a reference to Hindutva ideologue Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, who is hailed by the right wing as a freedom fighter.
Raut, in a series of tweets, wrote: “Not just for Maharashtra, but Savarkar is a God for the nation. There is national pride and self-respect in the name Savarkar. Like Nehru and Gandhi, Savarkar, too, laid down his life for freedom. All of them should be respected. There is no compromise in this... We respect Pandit Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi, you don’t insult Veer Savarkar. No need to tell more to a wise person. Jai Hind.”
Savarkar has been a contentious point between the two new allies, the Congress and Sena. Gandhi in the past had referred to Savarkar as a “coward”, inviting the ire of Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray. During the Lok Sabha election campaign, which the Sena contested in an alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party, Thackeray had played a clip wherein Gandhi could allegedly be heard calling Savarkar a “kaayar” or coward. Thackeray had said, “Will you make him (Gandhi) PM?... Go and experience one day in the prison Savarkar stayed in for 14 years. Go see how much he suffered, read his book.”
{{/usCountry}}Savarkar has been a contentious point between the two new allies, the Congress and Sena. Gandhi in the past had referred to Savarkar as a “coward”, inviting the ire of Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray. During the Lok Sabha election campaign, which the Sena contested in an alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party, Thackeray had played a clip wherein Gandhi could allegedly be heard calling Savarkar a “kaayar” or coward. Thackeray had said, “Will you make him (Gandhi) PM?... Go and experience one day in the prison Savarkar stayed in for 14 years. Go see how much he suffered, read his book.”
{{/usCountry}}The Sena, a pro-Hindutva party, has allied with ‘secular’ parties, the Congress and NCP, in Maharashtra. Congress’s state unit spokesperson Sachin Sawant said that the party does not subscribe to Savarkar’s ideology. “They [Sena] can have their opinion, but our view on it is different. As far as Savarkar’s ideology is concerned, we do not believe in it and will keep opposing it. Besides, the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi government is not formed to analyse Savarkar. It is formed to fulfil the common minimum programme devised solely for the development of Maharashtra,” he said.