In a dramatic turn in the Savarkar defamation case, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi’s lawyer on Thursday withdrew a plea from a Pune court that claimed the parliamentarian faced threats from followers of Hindutva ideologue Vinayak Damodar Savarkar.
Advocate Milind Pawar, representing Gandhi in the case, confirmed that the court had accepted the withdrawal. The move came just a day after Pawar filed the plea, later stating it was done without Gandhi’s consent.
Pawar, in a late Wednesday press release, said Gandhi had taken “strong exception” to the filing and disagreed with its contents. The plea, filed earlier that day, alleged that complainant Satyaki Savarkar—grand-nephew of V D Savarkar—had acknowledged being a descendant, through maternal lineage, of Nathuram Godse and Gopal Godse, key accused in Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination.
The withdrawn application claimed that in light of historical “violent and anti-constitutional tendencies” linked to the complainant’s lineage, combined with current political tensions, there was a “clear, reasonable, and substantial” apprehension of harm or wrongful implication to Gandhi.
Rahul Gandhi, who is out on bail in the defamation case, is accused of making remarks in a March 2023 London speech suggesting V D Savarkar once boasted about assaulting a Muslim man. The complainant has denied the claim, asserting no such incident or writing exists. The trial in the case is yet to begin.
