Union Minister for Law and Judiciary Ravi Shankar Prasad today questioned why was the Congress party opposing the proposal to award country’s highest civilian award Bharat Ratna to Veer Savarkar whom Prasad described as great freedom fighter and spent 11 years in Andman Jail.
“Whenever I had been to Andman, I paid my respect to the late Savarkar. He was kept in a cell and had no access to pen and paper to write anything and a temporary hanging yard was beneath his cell to terrorize him of the screams of those hangedâ€,Prasad recalled.
Justifying, further, Prasad told a press conference, that Bharat Ratna was given quite late to some of the top leaders like Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar, Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel and others.
Prasad said the BJP in the centre and the party in Maharashtra was strictly adhering to three major principles of nationalism,, god governance and probity. During the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India has emerged as strong nation and has been duly recognized by the international community and some of them have bestowed top national honours on Modi.
Talking about State Assembly polls, Prasad said the image of Chief Minister Devendra Fadanvis was getting brighter with Rs 14 lakh crores investments and out of which Rs 70,000 crores was in Vidarbha only. There is not a single incident of communal violence and act of terror, he said adding, the phase of unrest and trouble is over.
He criticized Congress for raking up article 370 in Maharashtra polls and asserted that it was an insult to the people of State who are being deprived of awareness of abrogation of article 370. He claimed after the article 370 gone, there was a big recruitment of Muslims in the Indian Army.