HYDERABAD: All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) president and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi on Wednesday slammed the BJP government after defence minister Rajnath Singh’s comment that VD Savarkar wrote mercy petitions to British at the request of Mahatma Gandhi’s.
“At this rate, they (BJP government) will soon declare VD Savarkar as the father of the nation. They (BJP) are presenting distorted history. Savarkar was accused of the murder of Mahatma Gandhi and was pronounced complicit in the inquiry of Justice Jeevan Lal Kapur.
There is a portrait of Mahatma Gandhi in Parliament and right opposite to it is the portrait of Savarkar,” Owaisi said.
Earlier on Tuesday, while speaking at the launch of the book on Hindutva ideologue Veer Savarkar, Rajnath Singh had said that Savarkar had written mercy petitions to the British on Gandhi’s request.
Owaisi also tweeted and posted a letter of Gandhi to Savarkar stating Rajnath’s comment was far from the truth and that whoever wrote his speech should be sacked. “It’s not good to have advisers who have a Savarkarite relationship to truth,” he said.
Owaisi tweeted: “Sir @rajnathsingh you said that Savarkar’s grovelling mercy petitions were on Gandhi’s advice. Here’s the letter to Savarkar from Gandhi. No mention of petition to British begging for leniency, mercy & promising to be a faithful servant of the crown.”
