Mumbai: Hindutva ideologue VD Savarkar's mention yet again stirred passions in the Maharashtra Assembly, when Speaker Nana Patole refused to bring any resolution commemorating him on his birth anniversary.
Several BJP members had trooped into the Assembly in caps with the legend 'Mi Pan Savarkar' (Me Too Savarkar) emblazoned on them – in a concerted attempt to embarrass the Shiv Sena.
They demanded that Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray should move the resolution, hoping to thereby add to the discomfort of the three ideologically disparate MVA partners.
Leader of Opposition Devendra Fadnavis took the cue from his party and launched a frontal attack on the government for shying away from honouring Savarkar.
However, NCP's Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar turned the tables on the BJP, wanting to know why the Modi dispensation at the Centre has not yet conferred the Bharat Ratna on Savarkar.
"When the BJP was in power in Maharashtra and at the Centre, former CM Fadnavis had written to PM Modi twice, urging him to confer the Bharat Ratna on the right-wing ideologue. Then, what's the hitch," demanded Pawar, countering the BJP onslaught.
He also took a jibe at the BJP, reminding it of Savarkar's views on cow slaughter: the ideologue had called cow a useful animal and not one that needs to be notionally worshipped. The next in queue, after Pawar, waiting with his barbed comments, was Transport Minister and Senior Shiv Sena leader Anil Parab.
“Although the BJP is demanding Bharat Ratna for Savarkar, the Modi government has chosen to honour Nanaji Deshmukh, Madanmohan Malviya and Atal Bihari Vajpayee,” pointed out Parab.
Outside the House, Aditya Thackeray chipped in with his tongue-in-cheek analogy of demonetization. ‘‘During demonetization, you made people to stand in the queue. Now, you have made Savarkar stand in the queue for Bharat Ratna," Thackeray said while speaking with media.
Surprised at the counter attack, Fadnavis called Shiv Sena a party that was desperate for power.
He tore a copy of the Congress magazine 'Shidori' which had called Savarkar 'Mafiveer' (hero who said sorry) in the lower house. BJP members rushed to the well demanding a resolution banning the Congress mouthpiece for its slanderous content against their icon.
He recalled how the late Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray had hit Congress leader Manishankar Aiyar's effigy with a shoe for insulting Savarkar. "However, his son, Uddhav, who is the Chief Minister, is sitting next to those whose mouthpiece had rubbished Savarkar," asserted Fadnavis.
He added that the state unit of his party will raise the issue with the people.
Wednesday’s onslaught, which left the BJP stunned, seems to indicate a gradual warming up among the three MVA allies on the question of the Opposition's resolution to honour Savarkar.
The Congress' views on the issue are well known, though the NCP treads with caution on the sensitive matter, while the Sena, which finds itself in a cleft stick, has been at the receiving end of the BJP's ire. But, now, it seems, they are being able to manage their contradictions.
