CHENNAI: Slamming the Hindu Mahasabha’s move to install statues of Godse across the country, Mahatma Gandhi’s personal secretary V Kalyanam on Thursday said it deserves condemnation.
He was speaking to reporters here after releasing a set of two stamps brought out by the Postal Department to mark 100th year of Gandhiji’s return to India from South Africa.
“Having statues of Godse, the assassin of the father of the nation, is wrong. Godse himself has accepted that he was wrong in killing Gandhi,” said Kalyanam, who was with Gandhi on the fateful day when Nathuram Godse shot dead the Mahatma. On the Swach Bharat campaign, he said the government should involve people rather than spend `1 lakh crore. In his view, spending so much money on the campaign is unnecessary. He also hit out at Union Minister Niranjan Jyoti for using abusive language at an election campaign. “She should have been sacked by Prime Minister Modi for making such statements,” he said.
Yet, Kalyanam prefers Modi as PM than having a Congress government at the centre. “They ruled for more than 67 years and people forgot the Mahatma and remembered other Gandhis,” he said.
Gandhi, he said, wanted to dissolve congress and was in favour of Lok Seva Sangh. He stressed the need to clamp down prohibition as is the case in Gujarat. T Murthy, Chief Postmaster General, Tamil Nadu circle and Postmaster General of Chennai Region Merwin Alexander were present.