Anil Vij finds ‘support’ over Mahatama Gandhi remark

But Goel also appeared to distance himself from the substance of Vij’s statement, and describing Gandhi as a “national saint”, sought to turn the tables on Congress by asking why they had failed to bestow the title of Father of the Nation on him officially in the six decades of its rule. Goel pointed to a Union Home Ministry response to a RTI query by Uttar Pradesh girl Aishwarya Parashar in 2012, that no action was taken on her plea to declare Mahatma Gandhi as ‘Father of the Nation’ because Article 18 (1) of the Constitution does not permit any titles except education and military ones.

Earlier on Sunday, Kurukshetra MP Rajkumar Saini termed the demand by opposition parties for legal action against Vij as a “political gimmick”. Saini told mediapersons at Kurukshetra that Modi is credited with a sudden surge in the demand for khadi. “He is a popular mass leader and there is nothing wrong in projecting Modi as an icon of the government-promoted khadi sector,” he added.