Savarkar petition row: Uddhav disagrees with Rahul Gandhi’s remarks, but questions BJP, RSS’ claims

Rahul says he stands by his remarks; Savarkar’s grandson to file police complaint against the Congress leader

While stating that the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) did not agree with Congressman Rahul Gandhi’s comments on Hindutva ideologue V. D. Savarkar, Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray lashed out at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), remarking that its expressions of love and respect for Savarkar were “laughable” given that the BJP’s parent body, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), had no contribution towards the Indian freedom struggle.

Mr. Thackeray, whose party is in alliance with the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in the State, disagreed with Mr. Gandhi’s comments on Savarkar’s mercy petitions during the British Raj even as the latter said he stood by his remarks on the Hindutva ideologue.

 “We [the Shiv Sena (UBT)] have great love, respect and affection in our hearts for Veer Savarkar which no one can erase even if they try to do so. While we disagree with Rahul Gandhi’s comments on Savarkar, it is laughable that the offspring [the BJP] of those [RSS] who had no connection with the freedom movement, are claiming to love Savarkar. They have no right to speak on Veer Savarkar,” said Mr. Thackeray, speaking at Mumbai’s Shivaji Park on the occasion of the tenth death anniversary of his father, Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray.

Mr. Thackeray was responding to the criticism of BJP leader and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, after the latter censured Mr. Gandhi’s comments on V. D. Savarkar made during the course of the Bharat Jodo Yatra.

The BJP and its ruling ally, the Eknath Shinde-led Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena, are using Mr. Gandhi’s criticism of V. D. Savarkar as a pestle to bludgeon Mr. Thackeray’s faction – given that his son Aaditya Thackeray had recently participated in the Congress MP’s Yatra.

Justifying his decision to stay allied to the Congress, Mr. Thackeray said that his party, the Congress and others had come together to preserve this hard-won freedom that had been secured by Veer Savarkar’s sacrifices and to oppose the prevailing ‘dictatorship’ of the BJP.

“They [Mr. Fadnavis and BJP] should first question the contribution of the RSS to the freedom struggle. How many times did RSS leaders go to jail during Independence? We [Shiv Sena (UBT), Congress and other parties] have come together to precisely to preserve this freedom and oppose the ‘dictatorship’ that we are heading towards…the BJP should stop asking us such questions,” Mr. Thackeray said, questioning why the BJP had not yet been able to award the Bharat Ratna to V. D. Savarkar despite being in power at the Centre for eight years.