‘Stay away and do not comment’: PM Modi tells his ministers amid Bharat-India row

Amid the ‘Bharat-Vs-India’ political row, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday asked his ministers to refrain from commenting on the issue. “Do not comment,” the PM is believed to have said at a meeting of the Council of Ministers where G20 and other issues were discussed. This is the first time PM Modi is learnt to have discussed the subject with his ministers. Over the last 24 hours, the Opposition has held two back-to-back meetings to chalk out a strategy for the issue. On Wednesday morning, former Congress chief Sonia Gandhi wrote to PM Modi, suggesting a list of nine subjects that can be discussed at the special session of Parliament beginning on September 18. The Centre, however, has reacted sharply, suggesting that the senior Congress leader does not pay attention to tradition, under which the agenda need not be discussed before the session begins. “After the calling of the session by the President and before commencement of the session, there is a meeting of the leaders of all the parties in which the people rising in the Parliament are discussed. Issues and work are discussed," wrote Parliamentary ‘Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi. Since Monday, when it was revealed that President Droupadi Murmu’s invite to G20 leaders describes her as the “President of Bharat”, the Opposition and the BJP had clashed with each other on the name change issue. The next day, a document surfaced that saw PM Modi being described a “Prime Minister of Bharat”. The Opposition has accused the ruling party of creating a smoke screen to deflect attention from the lacunae in their governance that has triggered unemployment, poverty and steep price rise. The issue is also a fallout of the Opposition Front calling itself INDIA, they said. Bharat Rashtra Samithi’s MLC K Kavitha has meanwhile questioned why Sonia Gandhi’s letter to PM Modi did not list the long pending demand for the Women’s Reservation Bill. Gandhi’s nine-point letter included Centre-state relationship, communalism, Manipur situation and the border conflict with China.