The Congress has begun to rediscover its Republican spirit. For the first time since it abolished the Privy Purses in 1971, the party has once again decided to move left of centre by deciding to expunge from its records all prefixes that denote any kind of feudal or royal linkages.
The titles that will be deleted include
Maharaja, Maharani, Raj Kumar, Kunwar, Rajkumari, Nawab, Begum. The party has also decided to advise all its members to discontinue the practice of attaching royal prefixes to their names.
The decision comes at a time when 16 MPs with royal linkages have been elected to parliament. The largest number of MPs belonging to royal families was in 1969, when as many as 28 MPs were elected from different political parties.
The Congress party’s decision to do away with royal titles goes a step further than the 26th amendment of 1971, which abolished the Privy Purses and the powers of erstwhile royal families but left their titles untouched.
Monday’s decision is in line with the party’s attempt to project itself as a pro aam admi party and the leadership felt that the presence of so many people with royal linkages on its ranks was contrary to the image it was trying to project.
At least four members in the current ministry belong to former royal families. Leading the pack is minister for steel Veer Bhadra Singh (former ruler of Rampur Bushahar in Hibachi Pradesh) followed by minister of state for commerce and industry Jyotiraditya Scindia (Gwalior in MP), minister of state for external affairs Parneet Kaur (Patiala in Punjab) and RPN Singh (Padrauna in UP).
Speaking on record, most of the “royal” MPs welcomed the party’s decision albeit with some misgivings. “ I welcome it in principle. But in practical terms implementing it will be difficult because in the voters’ list my name is entered as Rajkumari Ratna Singh” says the Lok Sabha MP from Pratapgarh. Her father, the late Dinesh Singh, was the head of the royal family of Kalakankar in Pratapgarh.
While current MPs are reluctant to say anything apart from agreeing with the principle behind the decision, former Rajya Sabha MP and Union minister Bhanu Prakash Singh of the Narsinghgarh royal family said, “This is nothing but a gimmick. These titles are our family heritage, how can they take them away?”
