A change of logo shouldn’t ideally cause a national uproar. After all, it’s something that thousands of companies and organisations do around the world from time to time — and without kickstarting a national debate.

But when Indian pubcaster Doordarshan News changed its logo colour to unveil a new look last week, it gave fodder to the Opposition parties to criticise the government, which defended the move as saying it was simply old wine in new bottle — the colour under question had been originally tested in DD logo.

So, amid objections raised by opposition parties over the change in the colour of the logo of Doordarshan News from red to orange, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav yesterday asked if the Congress would dare to remove the colour saffron from its flag.

National broadcaster Doordarshan changed the colour of its historic flagship logo from red to saffron. The announcement was made through the official X handle of DD News, which in a post, said, “While our values remain the same, we are now available in a new avatar.”

“Get ready for a news journey like never before.. Experience the all-new DD News!” it added.

Yadav, in a statement, said the Leftists and opposition parties did not understand that saffron is a symbol of sacrifice and renunciation and the Sun is the carrier of culture, a PTI report from Bhopal stated yesterday.

The change in the colour of the logo of public broadcaster Doordarshan News from red to orange has sparked off a political row, with the opposition terming it as “grossly illegal” and reflecting a “pro-BJP bias”.

Reacting to the allegations made by the opposition parties, Yadav said, “What does Congress want? The Leftists and opposition parties don’t understand that saffron is a symbol of our sacrifice and vairagya (renunciation). The Sun is the carrier of our culture. Now, if there is such opposition to saffron, will the Congress dare to remove the colour from its flag?”

Opposition parties have slammed the colour change, with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee dubbing it as an attempt at the “saffronisation” of Doordarshan during elections.

DMK president and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin said the logo change was a “precursor” to the BJP’s “conspiracy” of saffronising everything.

Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur took a jibe at Banerjee on Satrurady saying her love for “saffron” is “publicly known” while the BJP termed the change as a “homecoming”, contending that the saffron logo was tested in 1982.

BJP IT Cell chief Amit Malviya said India got colour TV in 1982 and Doordarshan became the national broadcaster the same year, a PTI report added.

“This is how it was launched. Saffron. We just reclaimed it,” Malviya said on X, sharing a clip of the promo of Doordarshan from yesteryears.