Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said Friday that his party and the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena “agree to disagree” on V D Savarkar, rejecting the impression that their conflicting views on the Hindutva ideologue would split the Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance. “I spoke to Sanjay Raut today. We agree to disagree. He refuted the impression that it will weaken Maha Vikas Aghadi. It won’t affect the MVA,” said Ramesh. “We (Congress) don’t distort history. MVA is a three-year-old alliance. We joined the MVA on a common minimum programme. I asked him (Raut) whether this issue will destabilise MVA and he stated that both issues are different.” Thackeray, the former Maharashtra chief minister, said Thursday that the Sena did not agree with a statement that Rahul Gandhi made during his Bharat Jodo Yatra. The Congress leader had said that Savarkar had submitted mercy petitions to the British, while freedom fighters such as Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Patel and Pandit Nehru and his party never bowed before the British. Gandhi also said the Congress did not idolise Savarkar. Raut had earlier said Gandhi’s statement would “certainly cause bitterness” in the alliance, which was formed in 2019 when the Congress, Sena and the NCP joined hands. Asked about threats Gandhi has received over his comments, Ramesh said the public response to the yatra had irked many and that threats were being issued. “His grandmother and father have been victims of violence and we are aware of the threat to him. There will be no compromise on the security of Rahul Gandhi,” he said. In response to a question, Congress leader and former chief minister Ashok Chavan said such “small threats” as made by the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) did not matter, considering the support Gandhi’s yatra had received. Ramesh, the Congress general secretary in charge of communications, said the party knew that his posters would be torn as happened in Karnataka. “But people themselves have answered it by turning out in huge numbers for the yatra,” he said. Ramesh said historical facts such as that Savarkar and Muhammad Ali Jinnah advocated the two-nation theory, the RSS opposed the 1942 Quit India movement and that Shyama Prasad Mukherjee advocated partition of Bengal could not be changed today. “This history needs to be discussed with unbiased mind. Not on social media and WhatsApp,” he said.
