The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) were at loggerheads on Saturday, 27 January, over a portrait of Tipu Sultan.
The row erupted after Arvind Kejriwal-led Delhi government unveiled portraits of 70 important figures from India’s illustrious history at the Delhi Assembly. Each portrait is representative of the 70-member Delhi assembly.
Among the portraits are those of Ashfaqullah Khan, Birsa Munda, Rani Chennamma, Bhagat Singh and Subhash Chandra Bose. The BJP objected to the portrait of Tipu Sultan calling the 18th century Mysore ruler a controversial personality.
According to reports, Delhi BJP legislator Om Prakash Sharma said that the AAP should not put portraits of controversial personalities in the assembly building.
In response, AAP’s Saurabh Bhardwaj asked the BJP to suggest names from their party or RSS who had contributed to the freedom struggle but they “could not come up with any”.
“We asked the BJP and their MLAs to suggest names from either their party or the RSS who had worked for the freedom struggle. But they couldn’t come up with any,” he was quoted as saying by Indian Express.
Delhi assembly speaker Ram Niwas Goel snubbed the BJP for playing “cheap politics”.
Tipu Sultan has been at the centre of a slugfest between BJP and the Congress in Karnataka.
When the Congress government in Karnataka led by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah decided to celebrate Tipu’s jayanti, the BJP opposed it by labelling the Mysore ruler a tyrant. BJP called Siddaramaiah’s decision to celebrate Tipu jayanti an act of minority appeasement.
The Congress believes that Tipu was a brave ruler who fought for freedom from the British.
In a letter Union Minister of State for Skill Development Ananth Kumar Hegde had asked that his name should not be included in the invites to programmes celebrating Tipu Jayanti.
“I have conveyed to the Karnataka government not to invite me to a shameful event that glorifies a person known to be a brutal killer, wretched fanatic and mass rapist,” he had said in a tweet.