Kolkata: Days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi advised his cabinet colleagues to remain mum on the controversy over the country's new identity, his party MP from West Bengal Dilip Ghosh only reignited the debate and asserted that India would certainly be renamed as 'Bharat.'
Adding fuel to the fire, the outspoken Midnapore parliamentarian even asked the opposition leaders, who are against the change in name, to leave the country and find 'India' in England. He also declared that all the British statues would be uprooted from the streets of Kolkata when BJP would come to power in Bengal.
On Sunday morning, Ghosh said at a 'Chai Pe Charcha' meeting at Kharagpur in West Midnapore, "Everything is changing. We will change everything. No one has the guts to stop us. India will be changed to Bharat. Those who do not like it can go abroad. Let them search for India in Britain. There is a India House where Savarkar once lived. There will be no India in Bharat. Only Bharat will exist."
He alleged, "Some states like Tamil Nadu are opposing the name change. Why did they rename Madras to Chennai? Most of the big cities in our country have been renamed. The Mughals changed the names of places first. Later Aurangabad has been renamed as Sambhajinagar in memory of the son of Shivaji Maharaj."
Ghosh then claimed, "No signs of the British, the Mughals, Portuguese, who made our country their Ghulam for 1000 years, will exist here. There are many British statues in Kolkata. Let BJP come to power. We will uproot all of them. These should be kept in Victoria Memorial. Items of museum should be in museum. There should be no signs of Ghulami on the road. It can not happen that our boys would have to see foreigners' face in the morning. Instead, statues of Bhagirath, Shankaracharya will be there."
Slamming him, Trinamul Congress spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said, "Is India the ancestral property of Ghosh? Some people call our country India, others call it Bharat. There is no debate in it. But an issue is being created deliberately. It is a panic reaction to 'INDIA' alliance."
