In a jibe at the ruling Congress amid the India vs. Bharat row, the BJP’s Rajasthan president, CP Joshi, on Wednesday, asked the party to come clean on “who divided India the position of Prime Minister in 1947”.
Speaking to reporters in Jaipur on Wednesday, Joshi said, “They talk about ‘Bharat Jodo’ but who divided the country for the position of Prime Minister in 1947? Who stood with people who chanted ‘Bharat tere tukde honge’? Mallikarjun Kharge (Congress national president) should issue a public clarification on this.”
A formal invitation to foreign delegates for the G20 dinner was sent out in the name of the ‘President of Bharat’ and not India, after which a controversy erupted with the Opposition leaders in I.N.D.I.A bloc claiming that the Bharatiya Janata Party was nervous about the nomenclature.
AAP leader Priyanka Kakkar stated, “India and Bharat are the same. ‘India that is Bharat’ is written in our Constitution. The reality is that PM Modi and the BJP are nervous about the INDIA alliance. When the first meeting of the alliance happened in Patna, the NDA, too, met for the first time in nine years. After our second meeting, the LPG prices that had been going through the roof for nine years were reduced by Rs 200. After the third meeting, hatred is being spread against the name ‘INDIA’.”
The leaders of the Opposition bloc alleged that the Centre was resorting to “drama” just because they came together and named their grouping INDIA.
BJP leaders, however, strongly supported the Centre’s wording of the formal invite to the G20 dinner.
Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, on Tuesday, posted a picture of the dinner invite to him from the President, borrowing a few lines from the national anthem on the social media platform ‘X’ saying, “This should have happened earlier. This gives great satisfaction to the mind. ‘Bharat’ is our introduction. We are proud of it. The President has given priority to ‘Bharat’. This is the biggest statement to come out of the colonial mindset.”