Calling PM Modi father of New India an insult to him: Sanjay Raut

Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut on Sunday asked the Bharatiya Janata Party if it agreed with the view of Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis's wife Amruta Fadnavis who called 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.

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.

Raut on Sunday said doesn't the BJP acknowledge the independence gained from the martyrdom of freedom fighters.

"Today in the new India, ghosts of hunger, poverty, unemployment, terrorism are raising their head. Making Modi the father of new India is an insult to him," Raut wrote in the Marathi publication.

He claimed the Father Of the Nation title was given to Mahatma Gandhi by the people of India.

Many political opponents including Shiv Sena founder late Balasaheb Thackeray had objections to it, Raut said.

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.

''The BJP and the RSS had no role to play in the freedom movement and hence, they have to steal icons linked to the Congress like Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose," Raut alleged.