Mumbai: Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Tuesday announced that the Maharashtra government will celebrate Vinayak Damodar Savarkar’s birth anniversary on May 28 as ‘Swatantra Veer Gaurav Diwas’.
The announcement comes after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Shinde-led Shiv Sena’s ongoing Savarkar Gaurav Yatra, during which party leaders are holding rallies across the state to extol Savarkar’s life and works.
one in do On Tuesday, CM Shinde’s office said that the state government would organize various programs on May 28 to “propagate the ideas of Veer Savarkar”.
The CMO said the demand to celebrate Savarkar’s birth anniversary as ‘Swatantra Veer Gaurav Divas’ was raised by Industries Minister Uday Samant to educate youth about the “progressive ideas”, “courage” and “contribution” of the Hindutva ideologue Was.
Savarkar’s role in the freedom struggle has been the subject of heated political debate for decades.
Just last month, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi comments – “My name is not Savarkar. I am Gandhi I will not apologize”—inviting the wrath of his political opponents and allies alike.
Gandhi made the remarks during a press conference on 25 March in response to a question on whether he would apologize for a 2019 statement that led to his conviction in a criminal defamation case and subsequent suspension as an MP. He was disqualified.
Apart from the BJP and the Shinde-led Sena, Gandhi’s remarks on Savarkar drew strong criticism from the Congress party’s Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) allies, the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT) and Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). .
Pawar even said that although he had differences with the Hindutva ideology, Savarkar’s role in the freedom struggle that resulted in his imprisonment in the Andamans was beyond dispute. In addition, rReacting to Gandhi’s remarks, former Chief Minister Thackeray had said, “Veer Savarkar is our God, and any disrespect towards him will not be tolerated.”
(Editing by Amritansh Arora)
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