Give Savarkar Bharat Ratna, says Uddhav Thackeray

The Shiv Sena has demanded a Bharat Ratna for V.D. Savarkar. Party chief Uddhav Thackeray on Monday said that the BJP government should give the country’s highest honour to Savarkar in order to give a fitting reply to the Congress. The party’s leader in the Legislative Assembly said that the demand would be raised in the House on Tuesday. Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray has challenged the BJP and asked them if they have the courage to honour Savarkar.

He was reacting to the BJP’s threat to hold a protest outside the residence of Congress legislators in Mumbai if they did not apologise for the party’s unsavoury tweets on Savarkar.

On Wednesday, the death anniversary of freedom fighter Bhagat Singh, the Congress had in a series of tweets compared the famous revolutionary against the BJP-RSS ideologue Savarkar. “Bhagat Singh waged war for freedom from the British Raj, VD Savarkar begged for mercy to be a slave in British Raj,” the party had tweeted. Earlier, in the first part of the Budget session in Parliament, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi had targeted Savarkar suggesting that the ruling party worked on his ideals, while the Congress’ path was shown by Mahatma Gandhi.

BJP has asked Congress legislators to apologise for the tweets. But Sena wants the BJP to take more stringent action and said that BJP’s weak protests would not be needed if they could send out a strong message by giving Savarkar the Bharat Ratna.

“The Modi government must dare to announce the award. Shiv Sena has protested for the same cause several times. We had slapped (then Congress minister) Mani Shankar Aiyar and stopped business of the Parliament. We are still fighting for Savarkar to be honoured by the award. But at that time and even today, the BJP is maintaining a distance from the Sena over the Savarkar issue,” Mr Thackeray said.

The Sena has decided to raise the issue of Savarkar in the Assembly on Tuesday. We will demand that the government recommend to the Union government to announce a Bharat Ratna for Savarkar. BJP is in power in both the Centre and the state and the decision can be easily taken. We will put pressure on BJP in the House,” said Pratap Sarnaik, Shiv Sena legislator.

He further said that the party would allow BJP to conduct the business of the House till they get a firm assurance from the chief minister.