Sena (UBT) leader threatens to blacken Rahul Gandhi's face over Savarkar remark
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Nashik (PTI): A local office-bearer of the Shiv Sena (UBT) on Wednesday said he would blacken Rahul Gandhi's face for his `derogatory' comments about freedom fighter Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, drawing a strong reaction from Congress leaders in Maharashtra.
The remark by Bala Darade, a deputy city unit chief of the Uddhav Thackeray-led party in Nashik, could put the opposition alliance Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) under strain.
"We are proud that we live in the birthplace of Swatantrya-veer Savarkar. Rahul Gandhi's statement about Savarkar, calling him 'Mafi-veer', was insulting. We condemn it strongly. We will blacken Rahul Gandhi's face if he comes to Nashik. If we can not do that, we will pelt stones at his convoy," Darade told a Marathi news channel on the occasion of the birth anniversary of the Hindutva ideologue.
The Sena (UBT) is an ally of the Congress in the MVA, and the two parties are also part of the INDIA grouping of the Opposition.
Nashik-resident Devendra Bhutada has filed a defamation case against Gandhi, claiming that some remarks made by the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha against Savarkar hurt his feelings.
Darade further said he did not care about the consequences of his threat for the MVA. "We will not tolerate anyone using abusive language against Savarkar....Whatever be the future of Maha Vikas Aghadi, we will not tolerate insult to Savarkar," he said.
Sena (UBT) spokesperson Sushma Andhare told reporters that Darade's views were his own and and not the official stand of the Uddhav Thackeray-led party.
Maharashtra Congress president Harshwardhan Sapkal termed Darade's threat as "cowardly."
''Rahul Gandhi's father late Rajiv Gandhi and grandmother late Indira Gandhi sacrificed their lives for India's unity. Congress and its leadership are not afraid of such threats," he told reporters.
Rahul Gandhi did not make derogatory remarks against Savarkar, he said, adding, ''His comments contain historical references. Even (journalist and writer) Arun Shourie, a minister in the Vajpayee government, has written a book on Savarkar, and most references in that book are what Rahul Gandhi has said. Our workers are capable of tackling such threats,'' Sapkal said.
Yashomati Thakur, another Congress leader and former state minister, said her party believes in non-violence but is capable of responding to threats. "Rahul Gandhi only repeated what has been written in history,'' she said.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
