The Karnataka BJP government plans to install portraits of Hindutva icon V.D. Savarkar at all staterun schools after unveiling one at the winter Assembly in Belgaum recently.

Five days ago, a life-size portrait of Savarkar, who had written mercy petitions to the British from jail, was put up at the Suvarna Vidhana Soudha in Belgaum, 500km from Bangalore, where the winter session of the state legislature got underway on Monday. Minister for Kannada and culture V. Sunil Kumar said the government planned to display portraits of Savarkar in schools.

“We are planning to install pictures of Veer Savarkar in all government schools,” he told reporters on Tuesday, defending the act of installing a portrait of the Hindutva icon in the state legislature.

The winter session got off to a stormy start on Monday when the BJP government installed the Savarkar portrait in the hall of the alternative legislature building in Belgaum along with those of Mahatma Gandhi, Basaveshwara, the founder of the Lingayat religion, Sardar Vallabbhai Patel, B.R. Ambedkar, Subhas Chandra Bose and Swami Vivekananda.

Missing from the gallery unveiled by Speaker Vishweshwar Hegde Kageri was India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. The Congress boycotted the unveiling event attended by chief minister Basavaraj Bommai and instead staged a protest at the entrance of the Suvarna Vidhana Soudha.

The Congress lawmakers held portraits of Nehru, philosopher-saint Kanakadasa, Valmiki, Kannada poet Kuvempu, Kerala’s social reformer and saint Sree Narayana Guru and Babu Jagjivan Ram, among others. The Congress clarified that it did not want to get drawn into controversy and take the focus away from the burning problems the state was facing.

“Today it’s Savarkar’s portrait, tomorrow they might install a picture of (Nathuram) Godse, mainly to drag the nation, including the Opposition parties, into a debate and deflect our attention from critical issues such as price rise, unemployment and the problems faced by farmers and workers. While it is unfortunate what they are doing, we will continue to raise serious issues that the BJP government wants us to ignore,” state Congress spokesperson M. Lakshman told The Telegraph on Wednesday.

He questioned why Savarkar had become a hero for the current BJP leaders while their predecessors had not celebrated him. “If Savarkar had made any significant contribution to the freedom struggle, why wasn’t he projected by A.B. Vajpayee, L.K. Advani or Murli Manohar Joshi? They knew what Savarkar was, while the current set of BJP leaders want to project him with the sole aim of deflecting the Opposition’s attention from serious issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ problems and labour matters,” Lakshman said.

He accused the BJP government of trying to brush issues like non-payment of GST dues amounting to Rs 20,000 crore under the carpet by attempting to lure the Opposition into debates over Savarkar. The state government had in its Har Ghar Tiranga campaign advertisement limited Nehru to a faint sketch while Savarkar was featured with Gandhi in the top row. Ambedkar was placed below Savarkar.

The Congress had projected the move as Bommai’s bid to warm up to the BJP bosses to secure his position. In another act that triggered widespread protests by the Congress, the Bangalore city council had named a flyover after Savarkar and got it inaugurated by then chief minister B.S. Yediyurappa in 2020.

Shah sees ‘good work’ in Gujarat

Union home minister Amit Shah on Wednesday told the Lok Sabha that Gujarat should be lauded for massive drug seizures as he referred to Rahul Gandhi’s accusation of the state turning into a hub of drug trafficking.

Playing up the country’s largest seizure of drugs from Gujarat in recent times as an example of the state doing “sabse jyada kaam” (good work), Shah said it should not come as a surprise as the state had a long international border and several ports.

“Many a time, I am surprised…. During the Gujarat polls, I heard one national leader saying that Gujarat has turned into a hub of drugs and that large quantities of drugs were being seized,” Shah told the Lok Sabha during a discussion on drug abuse in the country.