Savarkar's grandson slams Rahul Gandhi for 'politicising' grandpa's views

Mumbai: Ranjit Savarkar, the grandson of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, on Sunday slammed senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for using Savarkar's name for his politics. Mr. Savarkar said that Mr Gandhi is making statements on Savarkar to further his Muslim vote bank politics.

During the two day special debate in the Lok Sabha marking 75 years of the Constitution, Mr. Gandhi, leader of opposition in Lok Sabha, targeted the BJP over what he called Savarkar’s views on the Constitution. The senior Congress leader had said that RSS ideologue had criticised the Constitution by stating there was “nothing Indian” about it and asked the BJP to clear its stance on the Savarkar’s view.

Addressing a press conference in Mumbai, Ranjit Savarkar said that Savarkar was the pioneer of Hindutva. “Savarkar’s life was dedicated to nationalism and Hindu unity. The Congress leader’s allegations against him are baseless and made without any evidence,” he said.

Denying that Savarkar ever said that Manusmruti should be worshipped, his grandson said, “I don’t know from which gutter Rahul Gandhi got purported papers he was reading. The fact is that Savarkar had said that Manusmriti is a historical book. Manusmriti should be treated at as a religious book. Veer Savarkar has clearly written that no religious book like Manusmriti, Quran, Bible has the right to tell us what to do in today’s time. Therefore, Rahul Gandhi's statements that Veer Savarkar had considered Manusmriti as a law and that he had said that there is nothing Indian in the Indian Constitution are completely false.”

Challenging the senior Congress leader to make the same statements regarding Savarkar on the public forum, he said that since Mr. Gandhi had made the statement in the parliament, therefore action cannot be initiated. “I challenge him to same things on a public forum tomorrow, I will certainly take action against him,” he said.