Gorakhpur municipal body takes initiative to replace ‘India’ with ‘Bharat’

Gorakhpur: (GMC) executive committee has started the initiative to replace “India” with “Bharat” in its official membership. Gorakhpur is the electoral district of Minister Principal Yogi Adityanath. Once the measure is approved, the GMC will become the first municipal body in Uttar Pradesh to use India instead of India as its membership, said Gorakhpur patron Manglesh Srivastava.

The proposal of the Executive Council will now be presented before the Board of Directors of GMC in the next meeting.

The Alcalde of Gorakhpur said that the name “Bharat” was in use since ancient times and the British rulers had introduced the name “India”.

“Now is the time to remove the symbols of colonial slavery,” he said.

BJP’s corporation chief Ajay Rai said that all the members agree with this proposal.

Another BJP councilor Mannu Jaiswal said that in 2014, the then Deputy CM of Gorakhpur Yogi Adityanath had raised the demand to use Bharat instead of India in the Parliament. He said that therefore this initiative of change in the Prime Minister’s field is a step taken in the right direction.

Samajwadi Party’s Municipal Commissioner Ziaul Islam said that SP has no objection or (the Constitution says) “India is Bharat”.

Earlier this year, a debate broke out between India and India after guests at the G20 dinner in September called President Draupadi Murmu “President of India” instead of the usual “President of India”.

And when Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered the inaugural address at the G20 summit, the plate he held in front had “Bharat” written on it instead of “India”.

When the debate between India and Bharat started intensifying, the Prime Minister asked his cabinet colleagues to avoid political controversy, saying that it was “the old name of the country”.