Federal Defense Minister and BJP parliamentarian Rajnath Singh on Sunday hit out at Congress for kickstarting an unnecessary controversy around the logo of India's G20 chair.
"Controversies are created over symbols related to our heritage. You must be aware that a logo was unveiled linked to G-20, the nations having a hold on about 85 percent of the global GDP. Now that logo has a lotus. A storm was kicked up by some over the use of the symbol. They said that it's a symbol of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)," Singh said at a public event in Haryana.
India G20 logo
© Photo : Twitter/ @sidhant
Continuing with his criticism of the Congress, Singh said that the lotus has been related to India's culture for centuries. More so, it has been the country's national flower for more than seven decades and that's why there was nothing wrong with embedding it in the logo of the G20 summit.
"They are debating around the logo of the G20 Summit and are alleging that the Prime Minister has embossed the symbol of his party on it. The reality is that in 1950, the lotus was declared the national flower. And they did that because the lotus is a symbol of India's heritage," Singh added.
The defense minister's remarks came after Congress' media head Jairam Ramesh criticized the BJP, saying India's ruling party was "shamelessly" promoting itself at a prestigious global event.
"Over 70 years ago, (India's first Prime Minister) Nehru rejected the proposal to make Congress flag the flag of India. Now, BJP's election symbol has become official logo for India's presidency of G20! While shocking, we know by now that Mr. Modi & BJP won't lose any opportunity to promote themselves shamelessly!" Ramesh wrote on Twitter.
India will take over the presidency of the G20, a grouping of the world's 20 largest economies, from Indonesia on December 1, following the summit in Bali on November 15-16.