The two-year jail sentence and subsequent disqualification from parliament for Rahul Gandhi has had some impact on the Congress party’s relationship with Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress and Telangana’s ruling Bharat Raksha Samithi, as they seem to be moving towards healing their breach. However, a fresh fissure appears to be emerging elsewhere due to Mr Gandhi’s comments about VD Savarkar, which has upset ally Uddhav Thackeray. As a result, Mr Thackeray has announced that he will skip the Congress’s dinner meeting in Delhi.
Mr Gandhi’s response to the situation has been defiant, stating “My name is not Savarkar, won’t apologize” after receiving the jail term over his comments on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s surname. However, this response seems to have deeply offended Mr Thackeray’s party. It appears that the current rift between Uddhav Thackeray’s party and Rahul Gandhi stems from Mr Gandhi’s comments about VD Savarkar’s mercy petition to the British, which Mr Thackeray had previously stated that he did not approve of.
He had also expressed his respect and faith for Savarkar, stating that it could not be erased. Despite this, Trinamool Congress leaders Prasun Banerjee and Jawahar Sircar attended the Congress’s strategy meet in parliament this morning and participated in a “black” protest against Mr Gandhi’s disqualification from the Lok Sabha. The Bharat Rashtra Samithi, led by K Chandrashekar Rao, who has been working towards a non-Congress, non-BJP front, also participated in the protest.
