New Delhi: BJP MP Varun Gandhi on Thursday, November 11, hit out at film actor Kangana Ranaut for her remarks stating that India attained freedom only in 2014 and what it got in 1947 was only “bheekh (alms)”. Gandhi said Ranaut’s comment amounted to an “anti-national act and must be called out as such”.
While stating that people can never forget the infinite sacrifices of the freedom movement and the millions of lives lost and families destroyed in the process, the BJP MP asserted that to belittle it in such a “shameful manner” cannot be described simply as a careless or callous statement.
“It is an anti-national act and must be called out as such. To not do so would be a betrayal of all those who shed blood so that today we may stand tall and free as a nation,” he said.
Taking to Twitter, he posted a video clip in which Ranaut is heard saying in Hindi “that was not freedom [in 1947] but bheekh (alms), and the freedom came in 2014”. Ranaut’s reference to “freedom came in 2014” meant that India attained ‘real freedom’ only with the ascendancy of Narendra Modi as prime minister in 2014. This is not the first time that Ranaut has made such comments, as her vocal support to the right-wing establishment and jibes at opposition politicians are well known.
Slamming her remarks, Gandhi, the Pilibhit MP, said on Twitter, “Insulting the sacrifice of Mahatma Gandhi sometimes, respecting his killer sometimes, and now the disdain for the sacrifices of Mangal Pandey, Rani Laxmibai, Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and lakhs of freedom fighters. Should I call this thinking madness or treason?”
Meanwhile, the national executive chairman of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Preethi Menon has lodged a complaint with the Mumbai police seeking an FIR against the actor for her “seditious remarks” at a conclave organised by a television channel where she was a guest speaker.
On the other hand, Varun Gandhi has been coming down heavily on his own party’s leadership lately, resulting in him and his mother, Maneka Gandhi, being dropped from the BJP national executive committee. Gandhi had lashed out at his own party for “intimidating farmers” after the Lakhimpur Kheri incident and lent his support to farmers who have been protesting on Delhi’s borders for nearly a year. In wake of the recent Uttar Pradesh floods, he had attacked the Yogi Adityanath government, saying if the common man is left to fend for himself, what does governance mean, much to the consternation of the BJP.
(With PTI inputs)