Mumbai: Despite reservations from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Congress, a Shiv Sena MP indicated that his party would not budge from its hardline Hindutva agenda. Sena MP Rajendra Gavit reiterated the party’s stand in Lok Sabha that Hindutva icon Veer Savarkar should be awarded the Bharat Ratna.
The NCP and Congress had demanded that the Shiv Sena set aside its Hindutva agenda if it wanted to join hands with them to form the state government.
Speaking during Zero Hour in the Lok Sabha, Mr Gavit on Thursday demanded Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian honour bestowed by the Union government, for Savarkar and tribal icon Birsa Munda.
His short speech was mostly confined to the contributions of Munda. But he later made a brief mention of Savarkar as well. “Freedom fighters like Veer Savarkar should also be given the Bharat Ratna,” he said.
Palghar MP Gavit, interestingly, was a NCP leader until 2018, when he crossed over to the BJP and won a Lok Sabha bypoll. He tactically switched over to the Sena before the 2019 polls and won once again.
The Sena has been a vocal support of awarding the Bharat Ratna to Savarkar. At a recent book launch, Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray had said, “We don’t refute the work done by
Gandhi and Nehru but the country saw more than just two families being born in the Indian political scenario. I’d have referred to Jawaharlal Nehru as ‘Veer’ if he had survived an imprisonment for 14 minutes. In comparison, Savarkar stayed in prison for 14 long years.”
Moreover, Uddhav had also said that Pakistan would not have come into existence if Savarkar had been the prime minister.
However, after breaking ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party, there were speculations that the Uddhav Thackeray-led party could ditch Hindutva to forge an alliance with the Sonia Gandhi-led Congress and the Sharad Pawar-led NCP.
