BJP MP Anant Hegde says Mahatma Gandhi's freedom struggle was an "adjustment" with British,sparks controversy

Stoking a huge controversy, BJP MP Anant Kumar Hegde has termed the freedom struggle led by Mahatma Gandhi as an "adjustment" with the British, remarks condemned on Monday by the Congress and prompting the saffron party to ask him to tender a public apology.

The Congress also demanded that a sedition case be slapped against the former union minister and that Prime Minister Narendra Modi apologise for the remarks.

Freedom fighters who did not sacrifice anything made the country believe that it attained independence through 'Upavas Satyagrah', Gandhi's preferred mode of agitation by undertaking fast, said the 51-year-old Uttara Kannada MP, as he mocked Mahatma Gandhi at an event in Bengaluru on Saturday.

"Such people became 'Mahapurush (great person)", said Hegde, who is no stranger to controversies.

"Those who sacrificed their lives and worked towards big reforms in the country were dumped in the dark corners of history, but those who fought in adjustment with the British became freedom fighters with certificate.....

"This is the tragedy of the country," the 51-year-old six-time Lok Sabha MP from Uttara Kannada said at the event in memory of BJP's Hindutva icon VD Savarkar.

Karnataka state BJP spokesperson Go Madhusudan said his party disapproves of the statement and that its central leadership has asked Hegde to tender a public apology. The statement has been disowned by the party, he added.

BJP sources in Delhi said the central leadership including Modi is upset at Hegde's remarks, calling it unacceptable, even as it sought an explanation from the former union minister and issued a show cause notice to him.

The party's Karnataka state president Nalin Kumar Kateel told PTI that the party took strong objections to Hegde's remarks targeting Mahatma Gandhi.

In a video of the Bengaluru event which has gone viral, Hegde was heard saying "There were two types of freedom fighters, one which believed in 'Shastra' (arms) and another in shaastra' (intellectual motivators)".

There was also another category "who used to ask the British how to carry out" the freedom struggle and say, "We will agree to whatever you (British) say...simply adjustment and understanding, like 20-20 (cricket match)," the MP said in a rambling speech and possibly referring to a T20 cricket match in the context of some instances of match fixing.

In Hegde's view, this third category of freedom fighters had pleaded with the British to recognise their freedom struggle and requested that they be imprisoned.

"They said it's enough if you(British) properly take care of us, nothing more than that."
He had also then said he respects the Constitution but "it will be changed in the days to come... We are here for that and that is why we have come."