The Modi-led government of India is reportedly working to rename the country’s name to “Bharat in the upcoming special session of Parliament, India Today reported on Tuesday.
The debate around the renaming of the country was fueled after an invite for a G20 summit dinner surfaced with ‘President of Bharat’ inscribed on it.
While the BJP leaders have advocated for renaming the country, the Congress party opposed the attempts to change the name of the country calling it an assault on the Union of States.
Article 1 of the Indian Constitution reads: “India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States.”
Congress leader Jairam Ramesh called attention to the Indian president’s invite on X, saying, “So the news is indeed true” amid calls by some BJP leaders to replace the name India with Bharat.
Ramesh tweeted that an invite from the Rashtrapati Bhavan for a dinner on September 9 - the opening day of the G20 Summit - said ‘President of Bharat’ instead of ‘President of India’.
“Now, Article 1 in the Constitution can read: ‘Bharat, that was India, shall be a Union of States.’ But now even this ‘Union of States’ is under assault,” he wrote.