Speaker skips Savarkar146;s function in Parliament

Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha L K Advani led the nation in remembering freedom fighter Vinayak Damodar...

While Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee chose to stay away, Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha L K Advani led the nation in remembering freedom fighter Vinayak Damodar Savarkar on his 125th birth anniversary at the Central Hall of Parliament on Wednesday. It was a saffron crowd at the function, the sole notable exception being Minister of State for parliamentary Affairs V Narayansamy. Those present included BJP leaders Jaswant Singh, Sushma Swaraj, Vijay Kumar Malhotra, S S Ahluwalia and Shahnawaz Hussain.

It may be termed a sheer coincidence that Chatterjee had another engagement for the day, far from the Capital, at Mizoram8217;s capital Aizawl. He was scheduled to address the 11th conference of the North-East Region Commonwealth Parliament Association. However, Chatterjee could not make it to Aizawl either. His flight had to return to Kolkata from Aizwal after making two unsuccessful attempts to land.

For the sake of flashback, over five years ago, on February 26, 2003, Chatterjee, CPIM leader in the Lok Sabha at the time, stayed away as the then President A P J Abdul Kalam unveiled Savarkar8217;s portrait in the Central Hall. The function was boycotted by the then Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sonia Gandhi, Left Front, SP, BSP, JDS and several other parties. Chatterjee was opposed to the putting up of Savarkar8217;s portrait. Along with H D Deve Gowda and Mulayam Singh Yadav, he was a signatory to a joint letter by MPs requesting Kalam not to unveil the portrait. 8220;Savarkar was an accused in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi and had submitted a mercy petition to the British authorities, besides being a supporter of Mohammed Ali Jinnah8217;s two-nation theory,8221; the letter had said. As the non-BJP parties mounted a campaign questioning Savarkar8217;s credentials for the honour, the BJP, which led the ruling coalition NDA, retaliated leaving its opponents with practically no defence.