Most of the central and state government programmes and schemes and national and state-level institutions which run on public money have been named after three members of the Nehru-Gandhi family. The Congress Party's desire to credit every social sector programme, every national institution and every national achievement to these three individuals - Rajiv Gandhi, Indira Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru - has reached vulgar proportions, especially after 2004.

I am one among the millions of citizens who has felt distressed at this gross attempt by a single family to usurp credit for all the good that has happened in India. The complete exclusion of great Indians in all walks of life -politics, social reform, science, armed forces, academia, sports etc - and even persons like Mahatma Gandhi, Dr.Ambedkar, Sardar Patel, Ravindranath Tagore - is a matter of concern for citizens across India. Apart from the gracelessness displayed by India's oldest political party, there are also legal and constitutional issues involving free and fair elections and a level playing field for all political parties. If every scheme is named after icons of the Congress Party, where is the level playing field that the Election Commission says it wants to ensure?

I have compiled the list of government schemes, projects, institutions etc and lodged a formal complaint with the Chief Election Commissioner in this regard on March 13, 2009. I have urged him to issue a direction to the Union Government and all the state governments to remove the names of these individuals from all government schemes and to ensure that all programmes have politically neutral names like the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana started by the National Democratic Alliance government. The entire list of 450 government schemes, programmes etc is given as an Annexure to my complaint to the CEC.

The main points raised in the complaint have been discussed in a two-part series published in several newspapers. It has also been reproduced in my website asuryaprakash.com. Those who want a soft copy of the entire list will find it on this website. In the following pages I have reproduced the two-part series, the letter to the CEC and the Annexure to my complaint containing the entire list. I feel that there is need for a national campaign to reverse this process and to honour the real Mahatmas and heroes of India.

I take this opportunity to express my sincere thanks to Mr.Dinanath Mishra, Founder President of the India First Foundation for promptly agreeing to publish these documents. I am also grateful to Dr.Chandan Mitra, M.P and Editor of The Pioneer for his support and for readily publishing the two-part series in the newspaper.

A. Surya Prakash