Chief minister Eknath Shinde has quietly embarrassed his ally, the BJP, by demanding Bharat Ratna for Veer Savarkar. At a meeting of the national executive of his party, Shinde got a resolution to this effect passed. Interestingly, Shinde's arch rival Uddhav Thackeray had also put forth the same demand on several occasions. In fact, when he was helming the MVA government, on two occasions Uddhav had written to the Centre to confer the highest civilian award on the Hindutva ideologue posthumously. Uddhav had used the Savarkar card every time to "expose the BJP's sham commitment to Hindutva." What is interesting is that Shinde, who is totally dependent on the BJP for the survival of his government , has adopted the same stand as his bete noire, Uddhav, to demand Bharat Ratna for the revolutionary leader. In private, many within the BJP itself want the award to be conferred on Savarkar.
They point out that of all persons the BJPgovernment at the Centre gave this prestigious award to Pranab Mukherji of the Congress, who was a veteran loyalist of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty and not to Savarkar who was the first to propound theory of Hindutva. The Savarkar family itself is not evincing any interest in the matter because it is of the firm opinion that Veer Savarkar had a persona which was much bigger than that of the award itself. In any case, the award has been hopelessly politicised with the likes of Tamil actor and TN CM MGR bagging it. Sources in Mantralaya said that Shinde is upset that BJP leader and deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis insisted on having IPS officer Brijesh Singh appointed as the principal secretary of the CMO. Singh is known to be a Fadnavis loyalist and his appointment in the CMO has not gone down well with Shinde. By demanding Bharat Ratna for Savarkar, Shinde appears to be even with the BJP in his own way.
Significantly, even though the BJP has sworn by the legacy of Savarkar, it has not deemed it fit to confer the Bharat Ratna on him all these years. Sources in the Sangh Parivar say that differences between Savarkar and RSS have been there for several decades. Savarkar was six times president of the Akhil Bharat Hindu Sabha which was known for taking extremely radical positions on several national issues, which were at variance with the RSS viewpoint. Savarkar's views on cow worship was one of them. Savarkar had sarcastically observed "If Hindutva is to sustain itself on a cow’s legs, it’ll come crashing down at the slightest hint of a crisis.’ Savarkar's soft corner towards Nathuram Godse and intense hatred for Mahatma Gandhi was also a sore point between him and the Sangh Parivar.
