By Anand Singh

New Delhi, Oct 28 (IANS): With the BJP raking up the demand for awarding the Bharat Ratna to Veer Savarkar, the Congress has countered it by seeking the country's highest civilian award to Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru.

The debate over the Bharat Ratna to Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, the Hindutva icon, was ignited after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) mentioned it in its Assembly election manifesto in Maharashtra recently.

BJP President Amit Shah took the matter a step further when he said at an election rally in the state,:"Had it not been for Veer Savarkar, the 1857 'kranti' (revolt) would not have become history and we would have been seeing it from the British point of view."

Following the demand, political parties were soon sharply divided on the issue.

Meanwhile, the Congress was also divided on the issue.

Congress leader Manish Tewari on Saturday appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to award the Bharat Ratna to freedom fighters Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev posthumously.

In a tweet, Tewari said he had written a letter to Modi formally requesting him to accord the Bharat Ratna to Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev and dedicate the Chandigarh Airport to the memory of Bhagat Singh. Tewari also demanded conferring the three martyrs with the honorific of Shaheed-e-Azam.

In his letter, Tewari said the three freedom fighters have inspired an entire generation of patriots with their unrelenting resistance to British imperialism and later with their supreme sacrifice on March 23, 1931.

"It would be in the fitness of things that if on January 26, 2020, all three of them are honoured with the Bharat Ratna," he said.

The Congress leader said the gesture would touch the hearts and soul of 124 crore Indians.

On the other hand, senior Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi described Savarkar as a "nationalist". In a tweet, the Rajya Sabha MP said: "...he was an accomplished man who played a part in our freedom struggle, fight for Dalit rights and went to jail for the country."

Even former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during a press conference in Mumbai said: "Congress is not against Savarkar, it only opposes his Hindutva ideology."

According to Congress leaders, giving Bharat Ratna to Savarkar will be a major project for the BJP government to accord greater legitimacy to its own ideology. But under the present circumstances, Tewari demanding Bharat Ratna for Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev whose sacrifice for the country bears no controversy or dispute has brought a major hurdle in the path of the BJP.

In Maharashtra, the BJP and the Shiv Sena have on number of occasions tried to re-ignite the Savarkar debate during the Maharashtra election but never demanded the Bharat Ratna for him.

The bold promise now is being seen as an expression of the newfound confidence of the Sangh parivar because of its overwhelming political dominance in the country.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the BJP's parent body and the saffron party have always suffered a crisis of legitimacy because of their ideological infirmities and association with incidents like Mahatma Gandhi's assassination and the demolition of the disputed structure in Ayodhya.

A Congress insider said that for BJP the path of conferring Bharat Ratna to Savarkar would not be easy as he was always treated as a controversial figure because of the mercy petition he wrote to the British to get freedom even as other freedom fighters sacrificed their lives instead of surrendering to the oppressors will make the path .

He said Savarkar was even supposed to be the mentor of Gandhi's assassin Nathuram Godse and had also faced trial in the assassination case. He was acquitted for want of adequate evidence.

Another Congress insider said that Savarkar's Hindutva ideology, propagation of the two-nation theory and the objective of declaring India a 'Hindu rashtra' are another major hurdles for the BJP

He said that in the last five years of BJP government, they had never asked for Savarkar's recognition for the Hindutva icon at the Centre and in the Devendra Fadnavis government in Maharashtra.

So conferring Bharat Ratna to Savarkar would not be a cake walk for them (BJP), he added.

Savarkar, was born on May 23, 1883 in the Marathi Chitpavan Brahmin Hindu family in the village of Bhagur, near the city of Nashik in Maharashtra.