Mumbai: Vinayak Damodar Savarkar’s grandson Ranjit Savarkar on Sunday criticized senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for using Savarkar’s name for his politics. Mr. Savarkar said that Mr. Gandhi was making statements about Savarkar to advance his Muslim vote bank politics.
During the two-day special debate in the Lok Sabha on the occasion of 75 years of the Constitution, Mr. Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, targeted the BJP over Savarkar’s views on the Constitution. The senior Congress leader had said that the RSS ideology had criticized the Constitution and said there was “nothing Indian” in it and asked the BJP to clarify its stand on Savarkar’s approach.
Addressing a press conference in Mumbai, Ranjit Savarkar said that Savarkar was the promoter of Hindutva. Savarkar’s life was devoted to nationalism and Hindu unity. The accusations against him by the Congress leader are baseless and without evidence, he said.
Denying that Savarkar should worship Manusmriti, his grandson said, “I don’t know from which channel the letters allegedly read by Rahul Gandhi were received. The fact is that Savarkar said that Manusmriti is a historical book. Manusmriti should be taken as a religious book. Veer Savarkar has clearly written that no religious book like Manusmriti, Quran, Bible has any right to say what to do in today’s times. Therefore, Rahul Gandhi’s statement that Veer Savarkar accepted Manusmriti as law and that there is nothing Indian in the Indian Constitution is completely wrong.
Challenging senior Congress leaders to make similar statements about Savarkar in the public forum, he said that no action could be taken because Mr. Gandhi had made a statement in Parliament. “I challenge him to do the same in a public forum tomorrow, I will definitely take action against him,” he said.