Bagalkot: The Maharashtra BJP has promised in its 2019 election manifesto that it would urge the Centre to confer Bharat Ratna on the Hindutva ideologue Veer Savarkar if elected to power. However, there are certain parties and groups who have stepped up efforts to deny Savarkar this honour by reviving the three major charges that have been levelled against him since 2003.
First and foremost being that Savarkar tendered apologies to the British rulers while being imprisoned in the Cellular Jail in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands between 1910 and 1920. Second, it was Savarkar and not Mohammed Ali Jinnah who was the progenitor of the two-nation theory that led to the birth of Pakistan and that Muslims and Christians would have been second class citizens in Savarkar's vision of the Hindu Rashtra. Finally, he was an accused in the murder of Gandhiji and was let off only on a technicality.
