Rahul Gandhi's aggressive posture against Savarkar worries Congress leaders

Congress president Rahul Gandhi's aggressive posture against Vinayak Damodar Savarkar has sent worries amongst many of party's senior leaders, who are asking the top brass to show caution, because of public sentiments in Maharashtra.

Though, Savarkar was not a member of RSS, Rahul and his team are using him to take on the BJP and the RSS, who claim his Hindutva legacy, on ideological front. In a series of tweets coinciding with March 23, martyrdom anniversary of freedom fighter Bhagat Singh and his associates in a Lahore jail, Congress attacked Savarkar, even dusting out his 1913 petition from Andaman's Cellular Jail, where he expressed loyalty to British government. The party even compared this petition with that of Bhagat Singh's 1931 petition saying: "There exists a state of war between the British Nation and Indian Nation and secondly, that we had actually participated in that war and we therefore are war prisoners."

But this new-found hate against Savarkar apparently due to Rahul Gandhi's posturing has sent senior leaders, including those from Maharashtra squirming. Earlier when a similar controversy was raked up by Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar in 2004, the party had distanced itself from it. Senior leader and then parliamentary affairs minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said, "It is his (Aiyer's) personal opinion, we do not agree with what he said about Veer Savarkar."

But on Thursday, when approached, Azad refused to comment. Leaders from Maharashtra believe that raking up Savarkar will unnecessarily result in yet another issue to hurt the party in the state. Just a year, ago in Madhya Pradesh Assembly, Congress MLAs joined hands with the BJP colleagues, supporting a resolution, demanding the state government to bear cost of visitors who intend to to Andamans to pay homage to the memorial of "patriot" Savarkar.

In February 2003, when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was in power, the Congress had approved the installation of Savarkar's portrait in Central Hall of Parliament. Pranab Mukherjee and Shivraj Patil were on the parliamentary committee that cleared the proposal mooted by the then Lok Sabha Speaker, Manohar Joshi.

The Congress party's change of attitude is believed to have stemmed from Rahul Gandhi's reference to Savarkar in the Lok Sabha debate early this month. Rahul told the treasury benches that "we have Gandhi, you have Savarkar", BJP members protested loudly, seeking an apology. But Rahul deadpanned: "I just said Gandhi is ours and Savarkar yours. Did I say something wrong? Isn't Savarkar yours? Have you dumped him? If you have, you have done a very good thing. Since then, the Congress party's official Twitter handle has described Savarkar as a "fake" freedom fighter. It has also highlighted his role in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.

Savarkar was known to have apologised and sought mercy from the British when he was a freedom fighter. He spent 27 years in confinement, including over 10 years in Andaman's Cellular Jail, then known as Kala Pani. On March 5, a Congress tweet said: "Sardar Patel on BJP's patriot Veer Savarkar: It was Savarkar who was involved in Mahatma Gandhi's assassination."So far, there has been no known legal evidence to prove such a charge. Nathuram Godse, who killed Gandhi, was close to Savarkar. Savarkar is described by several political scientists as the person who gave political agenda to a certain brand of Hindutva."

By reigniting the Savarkar issue in the middle of the nationalism debate, the Congress, while attempting to consolidate the liberal opinion is also dusting out its 2003 "Shimla Sankalp", which called for setting up of Bapu Sadbhavana and Shiksa Trust, to give a forum to progressive people to confront the RSS on ideological front.