MP Pragya Singh Thakur at the Parliament House. File
| Photo Credit: ANI
Former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP from Bhopal Pragya Singh Thakur has joined the recent controversy of mandatory name display in shops and business establishments, saying that those who will not write their names are not Hindus.
In an X (formerly Twitter) post late on the evening of August 4, Ms. Thakur said that all Hindus should write their names on their shops and that nobody could stop them.
“I appeal to every Hindu to write their name on their shops and establishments. Now whoever writes it [their name] is a Hindu and whoever does not write it is not a Hindu. No one can stop you from writing your name because the country is yours. Then everyone is sensible,” she wrote.
Ms. Thakur’s remarks come about two weeks after the Supreme Court stayed such directives by the Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand governments which made it mandatory for eateries and food stalls on the route of the Kanwar Yatra to mandatorily display the names of their owners.
The SC on August 5 also extended its July 22 interning order of putting the stay on the directives. The Supreme Court had also issued notices to States through which the yatra traverses, including Madhya Pradesh even as Chief Minister Mohan Yadav’s government clarified that it had not issued any such directive.
However, BJP leader and Ujjain mayor Mukesh Tatwal had claimed that he had directed the officials of the Municipal Corporation to ensure that shop owners display their names in the city.
Various Opposition parties as well as some allies of the BJP had slammed the moves by the U.P. and Uttarakhand governments and dubbed them as divisive.
Ms. Thakur, who had won from Bhopal Lok Sabha constituency in 2019, was not given a ticket this time and replaced with former city mayor Alok Sharma.
