The Karnataka government has decided not to pursue the proposal, currently before the Centre, seeking a separate flag, which the previous Siddaramaiah-led Congress regime had pushed for.
“The flag committee has said there will be only one flag. The Constitution committee headed by Dr BR Ambedkar directed that we have only one flag - the tricolour. So, there’s only one constitutional flag across India. There may be cultural flags. Karnataka also has a cultural flag. But we are one nation, so we will only think about unity,” Kannada & Culture Minister CT Ravi told reporters on Thursday.
By cultural flag, Ravi was referring to the yellow-red flag widely used to represent the Kannada identity.
In March 2018, just before the Assembly polls, the Congress government had sent a formal proposal to the Centre seeking approval to the Karnataka flag designed by a nine-member expert committee. The Karnataka flag was also tricolour - yellow, white and red - with the state’s emblem ‘Gandaberunda’ at the centre.
In its proposal, the Siddaramaiah regime requested the Centre to include the Karnataka flag in the schedule of the Emblems and Names (Prevention of Misuse) Act, 1950.
The move was widely seen as Siddaramaiah’s plan to invoke Kannada pride ahead of the Assembly polls. The BJP had denounced the move as “an election ploy”.
The issue had surfaced in 2012, when the then BJP government headed by D V Sadananda Gowda accorded official status to the yellow-red flag, mandating its hoisting on government buildings, schools and colleges during Rajyotsava.
The notification was withdrawn after the Karnataka High Court raised questions on the legality of states having their own flags.