Prime Minister Modi might have quoted Rajiv Gandhi in his speech on Wednesday to drive home a point, but the NDA is in no mood to continue with public welfare schemes being named after the former PM, or for any political personality for that matter.
In NDA’s third budget, a subtle change was made by dropping Rajiv Gandhi’s name from four schemes, but thankfully, the BJP seem to have refrained from replacing his name with those of their own senior leaders.
A report in The Economic Times pointed out that schemes named after Rajiv Gandhi under the UPA regime now have politically neutral names. The BJP, in 2013, cited an RTI report showing 450 schemes, projects and buildings in India being named after members of the Nehru Gandhi family.
While the BJP has not replaced Rajiv Gandhi’s name with any RSS or BJP icons, the changes in names for these four schemes comes as a welcome step.
- The ‘Rajiv Gandhi Panchayat Sashaktikaran Abhiyan’ under the ministry of panchayati raj will be called ‘Panchayat Sashaktikaran Abhiyan’.
- The ‘Rajiv Gandhi National Fellowship for Students with Disabilities’ will now be known as ‘National Fellowship for Students with Disabilities’.
- ‘The Rajiv Gandhi Khel Abhiyan’ for promoting sporting activities will now come under an umbrella scheme called ‘Khelo India’, along with two other schemes.
- ‘Rajiv Gandhi National Fellowship for Scheduled Castes’ has been replaced with ‘National Fellowship for Scheduled Castes’.
In the past the NDA renamed a housing scheme called Rajiv Rinn Yojana to Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, and the Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana (RGGVY) was replaced by one named after BJP icon Deen Dayal Upadhyay.