Views on Savarkar within party’s framework: Aiyar

He said, ‘‘My personal views I think are entirely within the framework of the policy approach of the Congress party on this issue.’’

Aiyar acknowledged that Vinayak Damodar Savarkar was a freedom fighter, but said: ‘‘He was a patriot to the Hindu nation and I am a patriot to the composite nation.’’

The Congress leader sought to give a new spin to the removal of the Savarkar plaque at Cellular Jail in the Andamans by contending that the issue was not of its removal. Rather, it was a question of installing Mahatma Gandhi’s plaque, he clarified. When asked if he had removed the Savarkar plaque, Aiyar said, ‘‘No, I put in Gandhiji’s.’’

He went on to the explain that Savarkar’s plaque was one of the three faces — the two other being Madan Lal Dhingra, Bhagat Singh and a bunch of inspiring, though unattributed, quotations. He said, ‘‘I had to put Gandhiji in where the BJP put Gandhiji out. And all I did was to bring it in and the only place where it could be brought.’’

On the contrary, it was an insult to Gandhiji with the memorial making no mention of him and he had ‘‘only rectified that insult.’’

He said, ‘‘It is unbelievable that Mr Ram Naik, my predecessor, and people of his ideological persuasion think that we can have a Swatantrata Jyoti which completely obliterates Gandhiji’s role in the freedom movement.’’