If Savarkar was PM, there would have been no Pakistan: Uddhav

Np News 24 Mumbai: Pakistan would not have come into existence if Hindutva ideologue Veer Savarkar would have been the country’s PM at the time, said Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray.

He demanded that Savarkar should be awarded Bharat Ratna.

Thackeray was speaking at the launch of a biography titled ‘Savarkar: Echoes From A Forgotten Past’.
“Savarkar must be awarded the Bharat Ratna. We don’t deny the work done by (Mahatma) Gandhi and (first PM Jawaharlal) Nehru, but the country saw more than two families being born on the political scene,” Thackeray said.

“I’d have called Nehru as Veer (brave) if he had survived jail for 14 minutes against Savarkar who stayed in prison for 14 long years,” Thackeray added. Taking a swipe at Rahul Gandhi, who has in the past taken jibes at Hindutva icons including Savarkar, Thackeray said that the former Congress chief should be given a copy of the book.

Thackeray told the author of the book, Vikram Sampath, that he would buy copies and ensure that every school and college in the State stocks it in libraries. Speaking on his book, Sampath said that it is the first of two volumes and covers the period between 1883 to 1924, from Savarkar’s birth at Bhagur in Nashik district to his days as a firebrand student leader in Pune’s Fergusson College, as well as his fight for freedom that ended in a life sentence in the infamous Cellular Jail.
Savarkar was conditionally released from jail in 1924.