Karnataka sets up committee to study provisions for flag

Karnataka has set up a nine-member panel to study legal provisions of having a state flag, officials said on Tuesday, in a move seen as a political gambit by the Congress government ahead of polls next year.

The only state with a separate flag is Jammu and Kashmir which enjoys special powers under Article 370 of the Constitution. The Centre is also said to be toying with the idea of granting a separate flag to Nagaland under a treaty likely to be signed with the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (I-M).

Karnataka has an unofficial red-and-yellow flag which is used for cultural events and as a symbol of Kannada pride.

The move by the Congress government in Karnataka comes amid rising public sentiments against the Centre’s alleged move to impose Hindi on the Kannada-speaking people of the state.

Officials said the official notification constituting the panel was issued on June 9.

A defiant chief minister Siddaramaiah on Tuesday defended his move. “Is there any provision in the Constitution that prohibits a state from having a flag?” Siddaramaiah told reporters.

Experts HT spoke to, said there was no legal bar on a state flag.

“There is no provision either in the Constitution or in the Flag Code that prohibits a state from having a separate official flag,” said Alok Prasana Kumar, a Bengaluru-based lawyer.

Kumar said a code for this flag similar to the National Code will require to be passed as a law.

“If such a code is planned then it will need the assent of the President. This is because the government will then have to consider the relation of this flag with the national flag.”

While Siddarmaiah denied any connection between the decision and the coming assembly elections, political analyst Narendar Pani said it was part of the widespread anger in the state .

“There has always been an anti-Hindi sentiment here, which boiled over in 1983 during the Gokak agitation,” said Pani, a faculty at the National Institute of Advanced Studies.