The G20 dinner invite denoting the President as “President of Bharat” has divided the people all over in terms of the name of the country.

Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Arunag Thakur said “I think these are just rumours which are taking place. All I want to say is that anyone who objects to the word Bharat clearly shows the mindset.”

Article 1 of the Constitution uses the two names interchangeably: “India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States.”

Also, several names such as Reserve Bank of India and the Indian Railways already have Hindi variants with “Bharatiya” in them.

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Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was quick to ask whether the government would rename the country again if the I.N.D.I.A bloc changed its name to ‘Bharat’, implying that the move was born out of panic within the BJP.

Congress General Secretary (Organisation) K C Venugopal alleged that the BJP’s “destructive mind can only think of how to divide people” and once again alleged they were “creating a rift” between Indians and Bharatiyas.

“how can the BJP strike down INDIA? The country doesn’t belong to a political party; it belongs to 135 crore Indians. Our national identity is not the BJP’s personal property that it can modify on whims and fancies,” said Raghav Chadha, a Rajya Sabha member from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

“It is a proud moment for every countryman to have “The President of India” written on the invitation card for the dinner to be held at Rashtrapati Bhavan during the G20 Summit,” said Uttarakhand chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami.

Union minister of state for home Nityanand Rai questioned the objection by the opposition parties to the name Bharat. “What is the reason to object to this?” he told mediapersons. “If it has been done then it is welcome. Why do Congress and leaders of INDIA alliance hate the word ‘Bharat’ so much?”

Dharmendra Pradhan, the country’s education minister supported the change. “This should have happened earlier. This gives great satisfaction to the mind. Bharat is our introduction. We are proud of it. The President has given priority to Bharat. This is the biggest statement to come out of the colonial mindset,” he told reporters on Tuesday.