PMO: Khadi calendar row unnecessary'

New Delhi: After a controversy erupted over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s photo allegedly replacing Mahatma Gandhi’s photograph in the diaries and calendars of the Khadi Village Industries Commission, the PMO termed it an “unnecessary” one. The PMO said the “controversy is unnecessary as there is no rule in the KVIC that its diaries and calendars should only have Gandhiji’s photo”.

KVIC chairman V.K. Saxena defended the move, saying “there’s no rule or tradition that only Mahatma Gandhi’s picture can be published on these items”.

The Congress latched on to the issue, with its vice-president Rahul Gandhi tweeting: “The Mangalyaan effect”. This appeared to imply that the Prime Minister was trying to take credit for the promotion of KVIC as he had allegedly done after India’s Mangalyaan spacecraft had landed on Mars.

West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee also launched an attack on the PM, saying: “The great symbol of ‘charkha’ (spinning wheel) and Mahatma Gandhi now gets replaced by Modi Babu. In the calendar and diary of Khadi (KVIC) 2017, Modi replaced Mahatma Gandhiji. Gandhiji is the Father of the Nation. Modiji what???” Even JD(U) spokesman K.C. Tyagi said it was a “big shame” that Mahatma Gandhi’s picture was removed in a year when the country was celebrating the centenary of his first satyagraha movement in Champaran, Bihar.

Rejecting these charges, the BJP said Gandhi’s photo had not been used many times in the past and claimed the PM had promoted Gandhiji’s philosophies while the Congress only used his name and photographs. The ruling party said Gandhi’s photographs were not used in KVIC’s calendars and diaries in 1996, 2002, 2005, 2011, 2012 and 2013, and that there was no KVIC rule that only Gandhi’s photo had to be used.

Targeting the Congress and its “ruling family”, the BJP said the Congress had “misused” Gandhi’s name for political purposes for years. The BJP’s Sambit Patra said Mr Modi had promoted Gandhi’s philosophies which were reaching every household in the country, but there is “one party which ruled for years in Gandhi’s name... They keep calling themselves Gandhis though they had no link with Mahatma Gandhi”. The BJP said the sale of khadi through KVIC was only between two to seven per cent all these years, but Prime Minister Modi’s efforts had taken it to over 35 per cent.