Days after the India vs Bharat debate started, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday, 10 September, said that maybe the Bharatiya Janata Party’s ruling government got “heated” because of the coalition’s name.
Rahul was addressing a press conference where he said that he doesn’t “see a problem” with either of the names.
He said,
“The Constitution actually uses both names. It starts with "India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States." So, I don't really see a problem there. Both words are perfectly acceptable, but I think maybe we irritated the government a little bit because we named our coalition 'INDIA'.”
He went on to add that changing the name won’t serve any purpose since the coalition could also decide to have a second name.
Taking a jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said, “People act in strange ways.”
Rahul’s comments come days after a political row erupted about the name of the country. In the official invite for the grand G20 dinner, President Droupadi Murmu extended the invitation to dignitaries from the “President of Bharat” instead of the traditional “President of India.”
Even at the inaugural address of the G20 summit held in New Delhi on 9-10 September, the PM’s name card read ‘Bharat’ instead of ‘India’.
However, on 6 September, the PM also advised his colleagues to avoid any speculation on this.
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