NEW DELHI: A Congress party leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi on Monday called Hindu Mahasabha ideologue Vinayak Damodar Savarkar an ‘accomplished man,’ who had participated in India’s freedom struggle.
Taking to Twitter, Singhvi said that Savarkar had fought for Dalit rights and went to jail for the country.
“I personally do not subscribe to Savarkar’s ideology but that does not take away the fact that he was an accomplished man” who played part in the freedom struggle, fought for Dalit rights and went to jail for the country,” the Rajya Sabha MP wrote on Twitter with the hashtag “never forget”.
Soon after his first tweet in which he acknowledged Savarkar’s role in the freedom struggle, Singhvi takes a U-turn and in another tweet said:
“The strength of Indian thinking has been inclusive. Many strands of the freedom movement have existed — one cnot agree with the jingoism or violent elements of #Savarkar’s nationalism nor with his vicious anti #Gandhism but one can accept that he was imbued by nationalist motives.”
This comes days after the BJP in its manifesto for Maharashtra Assembly polls proposed the Bharat Ratna award for the Hindutva ideologue.
The Congress party is upset with its leader and said that it was not expecting such a statement from Singhvi and has asked him to immediately clarify his tweet; otherwise, the party will suffer.
“His remarks on the voting day can directly affect the Congress party,” said the source.
Last week, former PM Manmohan Singh, at a press conference in Mumbai, had said, “We are not against Savarkar ji, but we are not in favour of the Hindutva ideology that Savarkar ji patronised and stood for either.”