Mumbai: The Maharashtra government will celebrate the birth anniversary of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar on 28 May as ‘Swatantraveer Gaurav Din’, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde announced Tuesday.
The announcement comes on the heels of 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 the life and works of Savarkar.
In a tweet Tuesday, the office of CM Shinde said the state government will organise various programmes on 28 May to “propagate the ideas of Veer Savarkar”.
The CMO added that the demand to observe Savarkar’s birth anniversary as ‘Swatantraveer Gaurav Din’ was raised by industries minister Uday Samant to educate youngsters about the Hindutva ideologue’s “progressive thoughts”, “courage” and “contributions”.
Savarkar’s role in the freedom struggle has been the subject of heated political debate for decades.
Just last month, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s remarks — “My name is not Savarkar. I am a Gandhi. I won’t apologise” — invited the ire of his political adversaries and allies alike.
Gandhi made the remarks during a press conference on 25 March in response to a question about whether he would tender an apology for a statement dating back to 2019 that led to his conviction in a criminal defamation case and his subsequent disqualification as an MP.
Besides the BJP and the Shinde-led Sena, Gandhi’s remarks on Savarkar invited 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 though he had differences with the Hindutva ideology, Savarkar’s role in the freedom struggle that resulted in his imprisonment in Andamans was beyond contention. In addition, reacting to Gandhi’s remarks, former chief minister Thackeray had said, “Veer Savarkar is our God, and any disrespect towards him will not be tolerated.”
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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