‘My name is not Savarkar…Gandhis don’t apologise’: Rahul’s swipe at BJP-RSS

Months after senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi stoked controversy with his remarks on V D Savarkar, the former Lok Sabha member on Saturday against took a swipe at the Hindutva ideologue while addressing a press conference at party headquarters in New Delhi.

When asked about his opinion on the suggestions that he could have escaped conviction and two-year jail sentence in criminal defamation case by apologising for his remarks, Rahul Gandhi said his name is not Savarkar but Gandhi, adding that Gandhis don’t apologise.

“My name in not Savarkar, my name is Gandhi. Gandhis don’t apologise to anyone,” the ex-Wayanad MP replied to a reporter.

In November last year, Gandhi, during the Bharat Jodo Yatra, said that Savarkar would write mercy petitions to be freed from the Andaman cellular jail and also accepted a pension from the British. He also claimed that Savarkar had helped the British government during the freedom struggle, triggering protests from BJP and Shiv Sena workers.

Incidentally, legislators from the ruling Shiv Sena-BJP on Thursday created a ruckus in the Maharashtra assembly over his four-month-old remarks on Savarkar and also flung footwear at Gandhi’s poster on the Vidhan Bhavan premises. Shiv Sena MLA Pratap Sarnaik raised the demand for a condemning motion saying his party would not tolerate the insult to Savarkar.

Rahul Gandhi, meanwhile, said his disqualification from parliament was retribution for his demanding a probe into Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s relationship with beleaguered billionaire Gautam Adani.

“Please understand why I have been disqualified,” he told reporters. “I have been disqualified because the prime minister… is scared of the next speech that is going to come on Adani.”

Gandhi asserted that he is not bothered by the disqualification from parliament, adding he will continue to defend the democratic voice of the Indian people.