Letterheads to feature RSS icon Upadhyaya
The BJP has asked its elected representatives in Rajasthan to use a logo featuring a photograph of RSS icon Deendayal Upadhyaya on their letterheads for all official correspondence, senior party leaders and officials told HT on Saturday.
The move drew an angry reaction from opposition Congress, which accuses the BJP government at the Centre of trying to impose Hindutva ideology in the country and turning controversial figures into icons.
BJP national joint secretary and Rajasthan in charge V Satish gave instructions for using the logo during a party meeting in Jaipur on Friday, a senior BJP leader said. The meeting was attended by heads of various municipal corporations, commisSangh, sions and boards. The logo will also be used by ministers on their letterheads. “We were shown a sample of the logo with photos of Pt Deendayal Upadhyaya and other senior BJP leaders. We have been directed to print the logo on letterheads within two or three days,” Bharatpur mayor Shiv Singh Bhont said.
Upadhyaya was a founding member of the Bharatiya Jana a political party formed by the RSS, the idealogical fountainhead of the BJP. The Bharatiya Jana Sangh was the forerunner of the BJP. The Narendra Modi-led government has named several programmes after Upadhyaya.
Another senior BJP leader based in Jaipur also confirmed the move. “We have been asked to use the logo and will soon comply with the party directive,” he said.
The Congress, however, objected to the proposed move.
“The heads of local bodies are representatives of the government and not of the party. By asking them to include a logo of Deendayal Upadhyaya on their letterheads, BJP is trying to promote a person who has not made any contribution to the nation,” Rajasthan Congress spokesperson Archana Sharma said.
“It’s a misuse of official machinery to push forward their ideology,” she added. State BJP president Ashok Parnami could not be reached for comments.
As part of Upadhyaya’s birth centenary celebrations last year, BJP had asked its spokespersons to use the logo in its official correspondence and press notes.
Over the past few years, several BJP-ruled states, including Rajasthan, Gujarat, Haryana and Maharashtra, faced allegation of saffronising education by changing schoolbooks. HT has earlier reported that from the current academic session, RSS icons such as Veer Savarkar, Upadhyaya and Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, have been given prominently featured in revised textbooks published by the Rajasthan education board. State education minister Vasudev Devnani has called the process a cultural reform.