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Mayawati urges SC to take note of political misuse of country’s name, ban it
Mayawati said the BJP-led NDA or the central government should have moved the Supreme Court after opposition parties named their alliance INDIA
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati on Wednesday urged the Supreme Court to take cognizance on its own of the “narrow politics” being done on Bharat and India and ban all political bodies, organisations, and alliances using the country’s name.
The comments came a day after President Droupadi Murmu sent out an invitation for a G20 dinner in her capacity as “President of Bharat” instead of “President of India” and triggered a row. Opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc constituents linked the reference to Bharat in the invite to the BJP’s nervousness over the formidable challenge they pose to the ruling party.
Mayawati said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) or the central government should have moved Supreme Court after opposition parties named their alliance INDIA. “The ruling party should have brought a law to ban the naming of the alliance INDIA.”
She maintained Bharat and India are well-known and dignified constitutional names of the country.
The Constitution’s Article 1 says, “India, that is Bharat, shall be a union of states.”
Mayawati said the people love, respect, and have an affinity with the Constitution whose drafting Bhimrao Ambedkar oversaw. “To amend it or tamper with its spirit will be inappropriate and unjust,” she said at a press conference.
The G20 dinner invite set off speculation that renaming India as Bharat could be part of the legislative agenda during the special session of Parliament from September 18 to 22.
Mayawati said the Opposition has given an opportunity to the NDA government to tamper with the Constitution over the country’s name by naming its alliance INDIA under a well-planned strategy and conspiracy. “The name game politics..of the Opposition and the ruling party...should be condemned.”
Mayawati accused the Congress and BJP of promoting the politics of Bharat versus India ahead of the 2024 national election. “The people have understood the dirty politics. The issues such as poverty, unemployment, and price rise have been sidelined.”
She called the “narrow politics” over India and Bharat anti-people. “The Supreme Court should take cognisance of the issue or else the narrow politics in the name of our country will provide an opportunity to anyone to tamper with our Constitution.”
She insisted the BSP decided to maintain a distance from both the alliances in the people’s interest.
Mayawati last week ruled out an alliance with either the INDIA bloc NDA, calling the parties in the groupings mostly “anti-poor, casteist, communal and pro-rich”. In a series of posts on X (formerly Twitter) a day before the two-day third INDIA bloc meeting in Mumbai, Mayawati said BSP has been continuously fighting against the policies of NDA and INDIA constituents.
BSP’s support base has significantly eroded since Mayawati became the Uttar Pradesh chief minister for the fourth time with a full majority in 2007. It could win just one seat in the 403-member Uttar Pradesh assembly in 2022. The BSP contested the 2019 national polls in alliance with INDIA constituent and arch-rival Samajwadi Party and improved its tall from zero to 10 seats.
