Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Mar 28: The differences between the Congress and the former Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray over Rahul Gandhi’s unsolicited remarks against Veer Savarkar, is learnt to have been patched up.
The Shiv Sena (Thackeray faction) leader Sanjay Raut said Rahul Gandhi had dialled Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday morning and “the differences are all in the past.” The former Maharashtra chief minister was hugely upset over the former Congress president’s comments about Savarkar and had threatened that such remarks against the person Sena treat as “God” could create a rift in the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), the three-party joint alliance in Maharashtra between Shiv Sena (Thackeray faction), the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress.
Raut said “We have talked to Rahul Gandhi. Our fight is not with Savarkar but with Modi ji.” “The things that have been said in the meeting — the things that have been said, are good things. Let our unity remain intact. I think it is going well,” he added, alluding to last evening’s dinner meet at Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge’s home. Thackeray had pulled out of the dinner meet saying Gandhi’s comments against Savarkar could drive a wedge in their alliance in Maharashtra.
The differences were patched up after the NCP Chief and the veteran leader Sharad Pawar stepped in slightly reprimanding the Congress for de-railing the opposition unity with such uncalled for attacks against each other.
Playing the role of peacemaker by conveying the Shiv Sena’s concerns on the issue to the Congress leadership, Pawar raised the issue during the dinner meeting of opposition leaders thrown by Kharge on Monday evening and made it clear that targeting Savarkar, a revered figure in Maharashtra, would not help the opposition alliance in the state. Both Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi were present when Pawar raised the issue.
Pawar also told Rahul Gandhi that Savarkar was never a member of the RSS and underscored that the real fight of the opposition parties was with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP.
Gandhi had made the adverse remark when the BJP stepped up attack on him and sought his apology for “maligning India on the foreign soil during his recent visit to the UK. Refusing to apologise reiterating that he had said nothing offensive against the country, Gandhi had retorted, “My surname is not Savarkar, I will not apologise.”
Thereafter, the 17 parties attending the meet had decided that no opposition leader would make comments on sensitive issues like Savarkar, sources said. The Congress, they added, had indicated that it would take into account feelings of like-minded parties.
Gandhi had also addressed the assembled leaders, sources said. On Tuesday, the senior leader is writing to all political leaders who, in a rare gesture, stood by him and condemned his disqualification from Lok Sabha after the two-year jail term was handed to him by a court in Gujarat last week, sources added.
The Congress has announced a month- long protest over Mr Gandhi’s disqualification as an MP. Gandhi was found guilty and sentenced to two years in prison last week in a defamation case from 2019, over his remarks about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s surname.
However, in his Wayanad constituency in Kerala, which fell vacant on Gandhi’s disqualification from the Lok Sabha, there were not much of a visible protest on the issue. A few Congress leaders did assemble at Kalpetta as part of the party’s daylong nationwide satyagraha on Sunday against his disqualification, but the heat that the Congress has built up over the issue in Delhi, where the entire Opposition has rallied round was missing in Wayanad.
Despite a few protests it has organised in Wayanad, the Congress has failed to galvanise the local people over Rahul’s disqualification in this hilly, agrarian belt. None of the key state Congress leaders has visited Wayanad to fuel the local party unit’s protests, which have remained tepid.
No Congress banner pledging support for the disqualified local MP is seen on the streets of Kalpetta or in nearby villages or parts of the Wayanad constituency in the adjoining Kozhikode district.
A few old billboards of Rahul’s Bharat Jodo Yatra are seen sharing space with other hoardings. What seems to have been missing in most parts of the constituency is a visible display of public solidarity with the beleaguered local MP disqualified over a year before the conclusion of his term. The Wayanad District Congress Committee’s president and ex-MLA N D Appachan says, “We are sticking to a non-violent method of protest. For the last three days, we had protests in Kalpetta. We believe in Gandhian way of protest only and there are legal options for the party. Don’t expect that we would resort to violent protests in Wayanad. The party has legal options.”