The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) would replace the Bhagwa Dhwaj with the Tricolour in the arms of a statue of Bharat Mata at the historic Shaheed Park that is set to reopen soon, the Aam Aadmi Party told The Telegraph.

The Bhagwa Dhwaj is the saffron swallowtail of the Maratha empire that is used as a flag of the RSS and both factions of the Shiv Sena as well.

The newly built Bharat Mata statue that now holds the saffron flag is part of a waste-to-art project initiated by the erstwhile BJP-ruled South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) last year to mark 75 years of Independence.

The SDMC was reunified with two other municipal bodies to form the MCD, elections to which the AAP won in December last year.

Several sculptures in the park, including those of medieval Indian rulers and empires, as well as incidents and participants of the Independence movement, and gallantry medal awardees, have been created from scrap metal.

The park was closed for the last few months because of the redevelopment work. It is expected to be reopened before Independence Day.

After this newspaper questioned the AAP leaders about the Bhagwa Dhwaj in the arms of the Bharat Mata statue, the party’s chief spokesperson Priyanka Kakkar said: “We don’t support it. We have issued directions to immediately replace it with a Tiranga, our pride.”

Shaheed Park near the Ferozshah Kotla ruins was created in 1994 when Madan Lal Khurana of the BJP was the chief minister.

The park commemorates the meeting at the ruins in 1928 where Bhagat Singh’s revolutionary group called Hindustan Republican Association adopted Marxism and renamed themselves as Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA). The military wing was named as the Hindustan Socialist Republican Army. Bronze statues of Bhagat Singh, Shivaram Rajguru, and Sukhdev Thapar — who were hanged in 1931 for the bombing of the Central Legislative Assembly in 1929 — were installed at the park around two decades ago.

Bhagat Singh and B.R. Ambedkar have been projected by the AAP as their icons after coming to power in Punjab — where Singh was from and where Dalits are in a higher proportion than in other states. After joining hands with the Congress to form the INDIA alliance, the AAP has been asserting its secular credentials through its public activism against the Manipur clashes. The party has previously projected itself as a benign and urbane Hindu party in contrast to the BJP’s aggressive Hindutva politics.

Chaman Lal, chronicler of the HSRA and honorary advisor to the Delhi government’s Bhagat Singh Archives and Resource Centre told this newspaper that the archives had not received any communication from the MCD.

“Mayor Shelly Oberoi taught at Delhi University earlier, and she could have asked us for ideas. I would have suggested putting up the statues of the revolutionaries who attended the meeting on September 8 and 9, 1928, as well as Chandrashekhar Azad, who could not attend but has given his consent to the name change,” he said.