Amit Shah, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat expected to visit Andamans for Savarkar event

Union Home Minister Amit Shah and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat are expected to visit the Andaman and Nicobar Islands from Thursday, during which they will unveil a statue of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, a senior official said.

Security has been beefed up in view of the high-profile visits, and traffic restrictions may be imposed in some areas, he said.

Bhagwat may have a brief interaction with the workers of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) at Dollygunj in Sri Vijaya Puram. This will be his first visit to the archipelago as a ‘sarsanghchalak’.

Nearly two decades ago, Bhagwat had visited the islands as a ‘sarkaryavah’ (general secretary), while this will be Shah’s second visit to the archipelago, which he visited in January 2023 to commemorate the 126^th birth anniversary of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.

On December 12, both will unveil a statue of Savarkar at Beodnabad in South Andaman around 9.30 am, and in the evening, they will release a song on Savarkar in an event scheduled to be held at Dr B R Ambedkar Institute of Technology (DBRAIT), the official said.

On December 13, Bhagwat may address a public gathering at ITF Ground in Sri Vijaya Puram in the evening, and he will leave the archipelago on December 14.

The Union home minister may leave the islands either on the night of December 12 or the next morning, he said.

The entire event will be organised by a Maharashtra-based business group to commemorate the 116^th anniversary of the penning of Savarkar’s iconic 1909 poem, ‘Sagara Pran Talamala’ (Take me back to my motherland, O sea, my soul yearns).

Savarkar was jailed in the Cellular Jail in Port Blair (now known as Sri Vijaya Puram) by the British in 1911.