Mumbai: Hindutva ideologue Veer Savarkar is becoming a prickly issue for the MVA. After Rahul Gandhi’s outlandish remark last month that his name was not "Rahul Savarkar,’’ comes a Congress Seva Dal booklet which says Savarkar and Nathuram Godse had shared physical intimacy.
While the BJP and the Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha lost no time in hitting out at the attempt to defame Savarkar, the Sena, seemingly, gave a measured response, which may not have happened had the Congress not been a constituent of the MVA.
It was left to the likes of Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut to attack the Congress. But rather than doing so in unambiguous terms and attacking what is clearly a blasphemous statement, Raut said ‘‘Savarkar was a great man and will remain one. A section keeps talking against him. This shows the dirt in their mind."
Almost skirting the issue of Godse, Raut preferred to respond to the other insinuations in the booklet, which have questioned Savarkar's credentials as a patriot and his reputation for valor.
With the Sena treading warily over eggshells, Savarkar's grandson Ranjit took centrestage and demanded that a criminal case should be registered against the Seva Dal, as it was under its auspices that the booklet titled
"Veer Savarkar, Kitne 'Veer'?" was released.It was Akhil Bha-ratiya Hindu Mahasabha president Swami Chakrapani who raised the decibel level by targeting Rahul Gandhi and saying that they had heard similar claims about the Congress leader’s tendencies.
Gandhi's recent jibe – ‘‘My name is not Rahul Savarkar" – and his abject refusal to apologise for his rape remark outside the House – had irritated the Sena, too, but the birth pangs of the new government had taken care of the attendant controversy.
The BJP leaders, on the other hand, did not hold back their punches after the booklet controversy erupted. Party MLA Ashish Shelar urged CM Uddhav Thackeray to ban the booklet. ''CM Sir, if
freedom fighter Savarkar falls within the limits of your 'Maharashtra Dharma' then immediately ban the booklet by the Congress which defames Savarkar. Let the Marathi pride be visible. We condemn attacks by the Congress on the symbols of patriotism. We all are Savarkar," he tweeted.
Savarkar's grandson Ranjit, too, urged the Madhya Pradesh government to ban the booklet. ''The Congress is plotting to defame Savarkar. The party is conspiring to spread anarchy in the country by making unwarranted accusations,'' he noted.
In Jodhpur, Union Home Minister Amit Shah too hit out at the Congress for resorting to vote-bank politics and said that the party should be ashamed of itself.
"For vote-bank politics, the Congress party is speaking against a great personality like Veer Savarkar. They should be ashamed of themselves," said Shah addressing a rally here.
BJP national spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi said Congress leaders should read Rushdie's "Midnight's Children". The novel, winner of the Booker Prize, contains references to Emergency, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and her son Sanjay Gandhi.
"Freedom at Midnight was written by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre. But there is another book, Midnight's Children. Let them also read it. It will create a problem if we discuss what is written about the Gandhi family in Midnight's Children," Trivedi said.
Indira Gandhi had moved a court in Britain against Rushdie over a passage about the death of her husband Feroze Gandhi.
BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis, too, demanded a ban, saying that the Congress had exhibited its "wicked" psyche by circulating such a booklet, which underscored its "intellectual bankruptcy"
"The BJP strongly condemns the booklet. Venerable Hinduhriday-samrat Shiv Sena chief Balasaheb Thackeray would have been the first to react in his archetypal style (to the booklet), had he been around," he said, using the popular epithet of 'king of Hindu hearts' for the Sena founder.
"Today, we cannot have such an expectation, but expect that the chief minister will announce an immediate ban on the book," Fadnavis said in a series of tweets.
He also sought to know from the Shiv Sena "which entered into an unnatural alliance with such a bankrupt party" (the Congress), if it will repeatedly entertain insults to its "deity" Savarkar for the sake of power.
