New Delhi: Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Wednesday proposed that the coalition of opposition parties called the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) should be renamed as BHARAT, which stands for ‘Betterment, Harmony And Responsible Advancement for Tomorrow’. He hoped that this would make the BJP stop its fatuous game of changing names. His suggestion came in the midst of a heated exchange between the BJP and the Congress after the President’s office issued invitations for the G20 dinner on September 9 using the term ‘President of Bharat’ instead of the usual ‘President of India’.


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Tharoor posted on X, “We could of course call ourselves the Alliance for Betterment, Harmony And Responsible Advancement for Tomorrow (BHARAT). Then perhaps the ruling party might stop this fatuous game of changing names.”



The Congress-led opposition parties had named their alliance as INDIA during their second meeting in Bengaluru, Karnataka on July 17 and 18. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had earlier attacked the INDIA alliance by saying that even the banned terrorist group Indian Mujahideen and the colonial East India Company had INDIA in their names.


The Prime Minister also criticized the opposition parties before his response to the no-confidence motion moved by them. He said that it showed their lack of trust in each other as they wanted to check who was with them and who was not.


He addressed his party MPs at the BJP parliamentary meeting and called the opposition alliance ‘ghamandia’ (meaning arrogant) and praised his party’s Rajya Sabha members for their “semi-final” victory in voting on the Delhi services bill.


The Congress and other opposition parties have retaliated against the BJP for equating INDIA with East India Company and Indian Mujahideen.