Bharat Ratna to LK Advani and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and in addition to Karpoori Thakur and Pranab Mukherjee; Padma Vibhushan to Mulayam Singh and Sharad Pawar, and in addition to Kalyan Singh, Murli Manohar Joshi and Tarun Gogoi; and Padma Bhushan to Left’s Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, which he politely refused to simply accept.

This has been one hallmark of the Narendra Modi authorities, which, since 2015, has blurred the political traces relating to conferring the nation’s prime civilian honours to those that excelled within the class of ‘public service’. Merit has overtaken petty politics, with the Modi authorities not shy to acknowledge its adversaries and going into areas the place the Congress selected to not dread.

This displays within the selections of politicians, together with these against the BJP and particularly the Narendra Modi authorities — from the Congress, the regional events just like the Samajwadi Party and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), socialists and even the Left have been picked for these awards within the final 9 years.

In the final fortnight, the federal government has introduced Bharat Ratna for Karpoori Thakur, the torch-bearer of socialism, and LK Advani, the proponent of Hindutva politics within the Nineties, therefore, reaching out to each the Mandal and Kamandal political colleges of thought. The demand for Bharat Ratna for Thakur existed since 2007 from Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad however the Congress didn’t select to acknowledge him.

In 2023, the federal government introduced a Padma Vibhushan posthumously for Mulayam Singh, a yr after it gave the identical award to Kalyan Singh after his loss of life. Yadav and Singh have been on the reverse sides of the political spectrum of the Ram Janmabhoomi motion, with Yadav as CM ordering firing on Kar Sevaks in Ayodhya in 1990 whereas the Babri Masjid was demolished below Kalyan Singh’s reign as CM in 1992.

Both Yadav and Singh have been by no means awarded any Padma award of their lifetime by earlier governments.

A giant shock was the announcement of a Padma Vibhushan for Sharad Pawar in 2017 and a Padma Bhushan posthumously for Congress chief Tarun Gogoi in 2021. These have been leaders firmly against the BJP. Pawar was by no means given any Padma award by the Congress.

A Padma Bhushan for senior Congress chief Ghulam Nabi Azad in 2022 additionally shocked the Congress, together with a Bharat Ratna for Pranab Mukherjee in 2019. These have been prime Congress leaders — and the distinction to Modi authorities’s method was obvious because the Gandhis skipped the Award ceremony on each these events.

Tall regional leaders like Prakash Singh Badal, Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa and Ram Vilas Paswan have additionally been given prime Padma awards by this authorities. Muzaffar Hussain Baig of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) was awarded a Padma Bhushan in 2020, even after the BJP and PDP had earlier a bitter parting away of an alliance in J&Ok.