Use of lotus flower in Indian parliament proves to be a thorny political issue

A sartorial spat has erupted between India’s opposition and prime minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government over the redesigned uniforms for male staff in the country’s new parliament building. The uniforms conspicuously feature the lotus flower, which is also the ruling Hindu nationalist party’s electoral symbol.

Senior opposition leaders accused the government of “partisanship” for incorporating the BJP’s symbol on to these liveries, which will be on public display for the first time during the specially summoned parliamentary session for the opening of the new premises in New Delhi on Monday.

Designed by the state-run National Institute of Fashion Technology in Delhi on instructions from the government, the uniform shirts boldly exhibit the lotus motif all over, and will be worn under cream-coloured jackets along with khaki trousers.

However, opposition Congress Party MP Manickam Tagore accused the BJP of “imposing” its party symbol on parliament in advance of general elections scheduled for early next year. Parliament, he declared, was symbol-neutral and unaligned with any political party and he accused the BJP of “forcing itself” via its symbol on all the country’s institutions.

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The smaller Mumbai-based Nationalist Congress Party or NCP said that by foisting the lotus symbol on parliamentary staff uniforms, the BJP was “misusing the House for political gain”.

Party symbols are critical to all Indian political parties, as a large proportion of voters are illiterate and guided solely by these images while casting their ballots.

But the BJP dismissed all such criticism as “irrelevant”, saying that the lotus was India’s national flower and a symbol of the country’s cultural heritage. “For the opposition the lotus stands for [political] symbolism, but for us it is a cultural symbol” said party spokesman RP Singh.

“The lotus features in ancient Hindu texts like the Vedas,” he stated, “and was part of the Indian ethos.” Instead of celebrating the country’s culture, the opposition insists on questioning it, Mr Singh added.

This is not the first time in recent months that the lotus has featured in a political slugfest between the BJP and the opposition.

It figured when the BJP government unveiled its logo for the G20 last December after India assumed the group’s rotational year-long long presidency, which highlighted a globe nestling within a blooming green and saffron coloured lotus which corresponded with the BJP’s party symbol in all its hues.

Millions of posters, billboards and Led-screens featuring this logo, overlaid with Mr Modi’s picture, were splattered across Delhi, scores of other Indian cities and on major highways over the past nine months, in advance of the recently concluded G20 summit in Delhi.

This led the opposition to claim that the BJP was “exploiting” the G20′s presidency through its logo to subtly campaign for the forthcoming parliamentary polls. Congress Party general secretary Jairam Ramesh recently posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that the G20 logo suggested that the prime minister and the BJP passed up no opportunity to “shamelessly promote themselves” for electoral gain.

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The new parliament building, which also features several lotuses in its interiors, replaces the one built by the British colonial government in 1927.