A political controversy has erupted in Madhya Pradesh after the Congress accused the BJP of removing the portrait of former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru from the assembly hall and replacing it with one of Dr BR Ambedkar, the chief architect of the Indian Constitution.
The Congress, which lost the recent assembly election in the state, said that it was a commendable move to install Ambedkar's portrait, but it should not have come at the cost of Nehru's omission¹[1]. The party alleged that the BJP had a culture of disrespecting the freedom fighters and the nation-builder, and therefore, it had removed Nehru's photo²[2].
However, the assembly secretariat clarified that the portrait was removed as it was in bad condition, and the decision was taken by the previous speaker Girish Gautam, who belonged to the Congress. The secretariat said that the portrait was replaced by Ambedkar's as his 125th birth anniversary was being observed at that time, and Nehru's portrait was kept in a respectful manner in the Gandhi-Nehru section of the library.
The row erupted on the first day of the assembly session, which began on Monday with pro tem speaker Gopal Bhargava in charge of the House. The four-day session commenced a week after the BJP won the state for the second time in a row.
The BJP, led by three-time Ujjain South MLA Mohan Yadav, defeated the Congress by a huge margin of 163 seats to 77. Yadav was sworn in as the chief minister, replacing Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who had been ruling the state for nearly two decades⁵[5]. The party also announced that Jagdish Devda and Rajendra Shukla will be the two deputy chief ministers in the state.
