"BJP making political statement to...": Congress' Nagaraj Yadav on Karnataka Minister's remarks on Veer Savarkar

Nagaraj Yadav told ANI, "Congress and Dinesh Gundu Rao never make personal comments against anyone. He believes in the secular fabric of the country. The BJP is making a political statement to keep things alive...For the BJP, Savarkar's agenda is their agenda, and for us Congress, Mahatma Gandhi's agenda is our agenda...The BJP just wants to find a fault in Dinesh Gundu Rao. What he was trying to say was that this country belongs to everybody, country belongs beyond caste and religion, we are Indians irrespective of our personal habits."

Earlier on Wednesday, Karnataka Health Minister Dinesh Gundu Rao said that Savarkar's fundamentalist ideology was very different from the Indian culture, despite him being a nationalist, and that it wouldn't be Savarkar's argument but Mahatma Gandhi's that should win in the country.

Speaking at a book launch of the Kannada version of "Gandhi's Assassin: The Making of Nathuram Godse and His Idea of India" by journalist Dhirendra K. Jha, Rao said, "If we can say with a discussion that Savarkar wins, that's not right; he was a non-vegetarian eater, and he wasn't against cow slaughter; he was a Chitpavan brahmin. Savarkar was modernist in that way but his fundamental thinking was different. Some people said he used to eat beef and he was openly propagating eating beef, so that thinking is different. But Gandhiji had a lot of belief in Hinduism and was conservative in that but his actions were different because he was democratic in that way."

Following Karnataka Health Minister Dinesh Gundu Rao's statement on Veer Savarkar's ideology and claims of him "consuming beef" despite being a Chitpavan brahmin, Savarkar's grandson, as well as Bharatiya Janata Party leaders, came down heavily at Rao and the Congress on Thursday.

Ranjit Savarkar, the grandson of Veer Savarkar, said that it was Congress's strategy to defame Savarkar, especially when elections were at the door. He stated that the Congress wanted to divide Hindu society into different castes in order to win elections and that it was the Britisher's policy of "divide and rule." (ANI)