Congress fumes as Modi govt removes Indira, Rajiv Gandhi's names from Hindi Diwas awards

New Delhi, April 21: Narendra Modi government which is being cornered over Land bill, may face more ire from the Opposition.

Congress which is trying to gain ground by exploiting issue to its favour may push Government to wall for not bestowing proper respect to Congress' cult leaders.

Reportedly, government has removed names of former Congress Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi from the annual Hindi Diwas awards.

According to a Economic Times report, in its recent order dated March 25, MHA ordered to remove names of these Congress veterans from two awards 'Indira Gandhi Rajbhasha Puraskar' and 'Rajiv Gandhi Rashtriya Gyan-Vigyan Maulik Pustak Lekhan Puraskar'.

These two awards have now changed to 'Rajbhasha Kirti Puraskar' and Rajbhasha Gaurav Puraskar respectively.

Reportedly peeved Congress has termed the move as 'political vindictiveness'. Slamming BJP government, party has asked an answer from Prime Minister Modi on the same. Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said, "The height of political vindictiveness and parochial pettiness of BJP government is apparent in renaming of awards and shunning the name of two PMs who laid down their lives for the country."

Meanwhile, BJP has justified the move and has said that it is being taken in wrong way. "There were four categories of Rajbhasha awards earlier...two of them named after former PMs. We recast the scheme in a much more efficient and useful manner to make it more relevant to improve the status of the award. This is not discarding someone's name but a pure amalgamation of four schemes into two", Kiren Rijiju, MoS at MHA said.

OneIndia News