Bengaluru, 3 Oct

Following Health Minister Dinesh Gundu Rao's statement on Veer Savarkar's ideology and claims of him "consuming beef" despite being a Chitpavan Brahmin, Savarkar's grandson, as well as Bharatiya Janata Party leaders, came down heavily at Rao and Congress on Thursday.

Rao on Wednesday claimed that Hindutva ideologue Vinayak Damodar Savarkar used to eat meat and was not against cow slaughter.  “Savarkar, a 'Chitpavan Brahmin', used to eat meat. He was a non-veg eater and he was not against cow slaughter. He was modern in a way,” he said at an event here. “Some say that he used to eat beef as well. As a Brahmin, he used to eat meat and was openly propagating eating meat. So he had that thinking,” the minister said.

Rao added that Mahatma Gandhi was a vegetarian and had a firm faith in Hinduism “but his actions were different. He was a democratic person. (Founder of Pakistan Muhammad Ali) Jinnah was another extreme. He was a hardcore Islamist believer. He used to drink wine and it is said he used to eat pork as well but he became a Muslim icon after the two-nation theory and politics. But Jinnah was not a fundamentalist but Savarkar was a fundamentalist,” he said.

On Thursday, explaining the context in which he made the comments, the minister said there was a discussion on Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination in a book release event where he had a ‘very healthy discussion’.

Maharashtra Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis said people in Congress don't know anything about Savarkar and only insult him. BJP leader Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi also slammed the Health Minister for his statement and said "such knowledge" proves that people had lost their "mental balance" and that they should go to a "mental institution" to get better. Karnataka Leader of Opposition R Ashoka questioned why Congress always threaten Hindus and not Muslims. Ashoka said in the future the Hindu people would teach the Congress a lesson. –Agencies