Everybody's same as far as political exploitation of Bapu is concerned: Mahatma Gandhi's great-grandson

Tushar Gandhi, great-grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, on Wednesday said that everybody is the same as far as political exploitation of Bapu is concerned.

"On Gandhi Jayanti, everybody wants to claim a part of that legacy and I believe that everyone has the right to claim the legacy because Bapu belongs to the humanity in general and nobody has any proprietary ownership of that legacy," Tushar said here.

India on Wednesday celebrated the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.

"Some people do it sincerely, some don't. Politics of all kind is insincere in their eulogy of Bapu and their show of aligning with him but I don't think anybody is fooled by that insincerity. That's all across, you can't say that somebody is better than the other," he added.

Tushar went on to say that everybody is same as far as political exploitation of Mahatma Gandhi is concerned.

"If they respected Bapu, we wouldn't have seen politics of this nature and state of the nation as it is today. I don't give any importance to political 'bhakti' of Bap," he said.

While talking about the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, Tushar said, "Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is praiseworthy because Bapu said 'Cleanliness is Next to Godliness', but Bapu's cleanliness was not only external, his cleanliness was the cleansing of the soul and mind also, which was equally important."

He added, "No amount of cleaning the streets of the nation will clean the psyche of the nation and that is what is very important. The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is also reduced to a ritual and I don't think that when something is reduced to a ritual, it remains honest.