Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut asked Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) if it agreed with the view of Maharashtra deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis's wife Amruta Fadnavis who called the Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the father of New India.
This is an insult to Modi as in the new India, ghosts of hunger, poverty, unemployment and terrorism are raising their head, Raut claimed in his weekly column Rokhthok in the party mouthpiece 'Saamana', of which he is the executive editor.
No one in the BJP talks about (freedom fighter) Veer Savarkar being father of the nation. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was always opposed to Savarkar who underwent rigorous imprisonment. These people have partitioned India into old and new, the Rajya Sabha member further claimed.
Raut said doesn't the BJP acknowledge the independence gained from the martyrdom of freedom fighters. The issue here is not who is the Father Of The Nation or Sardar. The matter is about what is the BJP's contribution to the freedom struggle, he said.
Amruta, a banker and singer, in a mock court interview recently said, We have two rashtra pita. Narendra Modi is the father of New India and Mahatma Gandhi is the father of the nation of earlier times. It had evoked strong reactions from the opposition Congress as well as Tushar Gandhi, the great-grandson of Mahatma Gandhi.