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Mumbai: After having stoked a political controversy with his remarks against Hindutva ideologue V.D. Savarkar, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday refrained from making further comments against Veer Savarkar at his public address in Shegaon in Maharashtra’s Buldhana district.
The Congress Lok Sabha MP instead targeted the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a more general manner, claiming that the saffron party had spread “hatred and fear in every corner of the country.”
In his last public rally in Maharashtra, Rahul Gandhi remarked, “It is to counter the fear and hatred being spread by the BJP that we have begun the ‘Bharat Jodo’ yatra. Its aim is not to impose any ‘Mann ki Baat’, but to listen to the voices of ordinary people and feel their pain.”
The former Congress president touched upon farmers’ woes and the plight of students in face of ratcheting unemployment.
Rahul Gandhi further said, “In the last six months, how many farmers in Vidarbha have taken their lives and for what reason have they done so? If you talk to any farmer, they say they do not get the right rate… I am tired of hearing these words over and over again. They do not get their insurance money despite paying premiums. Their average debt burden ranges from Rs. 50,000 to Rs. one lakh. Farmers tell me that the government cannot waive a debt burden of Rs. one lakh debt, but can exempt everything for India’s billionaires.”
He added that if Maharashtra’s Chief Minister and India’s Prime Minister “opened their hearts” and listened to the problems of farmers, then not a single farmer would take his life in the future. Rahul Gandhi further said, “Maharashtra’s farmers and students have taught me a lot. They have given me strength, affection and knowledge during this Yatra.”
Meanwhile, BJP leader and Maharashtra Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis lambasted Rahul Gandhi in a series of tweets over his remarks against Savarkar’s mercy petitions to the British authorities.
Countering Rahul Gandhi, Fadnavis posted a letter by M.K. Gandhi on Twitter while pointing out that the Mahatma had used the same signoff as Savarkar did – ‘I beg to remain, sir, your most obedient servant’ – in his letters to the British.
“Rahul ji, yesterday you asked me to read the last lines of a letter (by VD Savarkar),” said the BJP leader, “Have you read this letter from our respected Mahatma Gandhi? Does it have the same last line you wanted me to read?”
Fadnavis has posted a part of a 1920 letter which has the Mahatma apparently telling the British about non-cooperation being a valid form of protest. The BJP leader further shared a letter, apparently from 1980 wherein Rahul Gandhi’s grandmother – former PM Indira Gandhi – reportedly called V.D. Savarkar a “pillar of the freedom movement” and “remarkable son of India”.
The Deputy CM also shared ‘testimonials’ on Savarkar’s sacrifice and bravery given by Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar (a Congress ally) in which the NCP leader calls V.D. Savarkar’s life “a saga of supreme sacrifices.”
During Rahul Gandhi’s address in Shegaon, the BJP staged a counter protest in nearby Khamgaon. Hundreds of activists of the Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), which had vowed to protest against Rahul Gandhi during his address, were taken into police custody before they reached Shegaon.
