Senior Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut has taken an indirect dig at the BJP on the occasion of Gandhi’s 74th death anniversary on Sunday.
Sanjay Raut said that Nathuram Godse – the killer of Mahatma Gandhi – was not a true patriot, as portrayed by many BJP leaders.
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“Creation of Pakistan was Jinnah’s demand. If he (Godse) was a real ‘Hindutvawadi’, then he would have killed Jinnah, not Gandhi,” Sanjay Raut said.
He added: “That would have been an act of patriotism. The world still mourns Gandhi’s demise.”
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Nathuram Godse had assassinated Mahatma Gandhi on the evening of January 30, 1948 when the Mahatma visited Birla House in Delhi for a prayer meeting.
Godse had fired three bullets at Gandhi from a point-blank range, resulting in his demise.
Godse was later arrested, tried and sentenced to death. He was hanged on November 15, 1949.
Nathuram Godse was a member of the Hindu Mahasabha and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological fountainhead of the BJP.
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In his statement during trials, Nathuram Godse clearly stated that he blamed Mahatma Gandhi for the partition of India and formation of Pakistan.
Notably, RSS claim that Nathuram Godse left the organisation in the mid-1930s, his family members, however, have maintained that he never left the RSS.