Andhra Pradesh Congress celebrates Indian flag centenary

Andhra Pradesh Congress has celebrated the centenary of the Indian flag designed by Pingali Venkayya at Jimkhana grounds in Vijayawada.

Commemorating the event, Andhra Pradesh Congress celebrated the centenary today at Jimkhana Grounds Vijayawada where Pingali Venkayya had handed over the flag to Mahatma Gandhi. Congress leaders also facilitated Pingali Susila, the descendant of Pingali Venkayya.

Speaking on the occasion, Andhra Pradesh Congress president Dr Sailajanath urged the Central government to celebrate the centenary of the National Flag.

"The Centre plans to celebrate 75 years of Indian freedom struggle, then why it is not celebrating the centenary of Indian flag", he asked.

He welcomed the statements of TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu and Jana Sena Party (JSP) chief Pawan Kalyan demanding Bharat Ratna for Pingali Venkayya.

AICC secretary and Telangana Congress leader V. Hanumantha Rao asked the Central government to rise above the politics and honour Pingali Venkayya.

Venkayya, a freedom fighter from Andhra Pradesh had designed the Indian flag. He had done research on flags of various countries and prepared a booklet with 30 designs and submitted it to the then Congress leadership in 1916. Later, Mahatma Gandhi had commissioned Pingali Venkayya to design a flag.

With Mahatma Gandhi's suggestions, Venkayya had designed another flag. He had handed it over to Gandhi at Vijayawada on April 1, 1921, during the AICC plenary. That was adopted as Congress' flag.

At the time of independence, the same flag is slightly modified, the Charkha (spinning wheel) was replaced with Ashoka Dharma Chakra and taken as the national flag of Independent India.

( With inputs from ANI )