The decision to confer the prestigious Lokmanya Tilak National Award on Prime Minister Narendra Modi has sparked fierce opposition within the Maharashtra Congress, with the party’s Pune unit objecting to Mr. Modi being given the award on grounds that the Tilak Smarak Mandir Trust is controlled by Congress leader Rohit Tilak, a scion of Lokmanya Tilak’s family.
Spearheading the charge, Pune Congress city chief Arvind Shinde on July 12 said that Mr. Modi had not emulated any of ‘Lokmanya’ Bal Gangadhar Tilak’s ideals and that the award was being conferred upon him at a time when Rahul Gandhi and the Congress cadre were fighting the BJP on the streets, and that central agencies were being unleashed upon Opposition leaders by the Modi-led Central government.
“Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak is a towering figure of the early Congress and the freedom movement and his ideals are forever etched on the party…his grandson, Jayant Tilak and great-great-grandson Rohit Tilak are part of the Congress. Today, Rohit is a general secretary of the Maharashtra Congress unit… On the one hand, Rahul Gandhi and the party workers are battling PM Modi’s and the BJP’s policies which are hurtling the country towards dictatorship. How can one appease Mr. Modi at a time when the Congress cadre are fighting him? This double-standard is not acceptable to us,” Mr. Shinde said.
