Karnataka Minister Sparks Row With Beef Comment On VD Savarkar

The BJP has started vociferous protests, and VD Savarkar's grandson has threatened to file a defamation suit against Karnataka Minister Dinesh Gundu Rao

BJP icon VD Savarkar, a Chitpavan brahmin, not only was a non-vegetarian, "many say he even ate beef", said Karnataka Health minister Dinesh Gundu Rao today, triggering off the next massive political controversy ahead of the assembly election in Maharashtra. He also said that Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, was not a fundamentalist but Savarkar was. The BJP has started vociferous protests, and Savarkar's grandson has threatened to file a defamation suit against the Karnataka leader.  

"Savarkar, a 'Chitpavan Brahmin', used to eat meat. He was a non-veg eater and he was not against cow slaughter... Some say that he used to eat beef as well. As a Brahmin, he used to eat meat and was openly propagating eating meat," Mr Rao said days after Maharashtra declared the indigenous cow as the "Rajmata-Gomata". 

BJP national spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi lashed out at the Congress, demanding that the party name any of its top leaders who was handed down double life imprisonment and lodged at the cellular jail in Andaman-Nicobar Islands by the British.