The Madhya Pradesh High Court has ordered that tiles with images of Prime Minister Modi and Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan must be removed from houses built for the poor under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) and asked for a compliance report to be submitted by December 20 this year.

Madhya Pradesh is among the many states in the north that are to elect new assemblies later this year. The order by Justices Sanjay Yadav and Vivek Agrawal was in response to a petition from a journalist.

Ceramic tiles bearing images of Modi and Chouhan were to be installed at the entrance and in the kitchen of thousands of homes built under the PMAY, a plan to provide heavily subsidised homes to those who can’t afford them. In April, the state government had ordered officials to make sure that the two 450×600 mm tiles were installed in each house.

The central government told the court that the houses can carry only the logo of the central scheme.

The BJP government in the state also told the court that it had already decided not to enforce its own order. The opposition Congress had also demanded that the tiles be removed, accusing the BJP government of trying to influence voters ahead of the year-end assembly elections.

—India Legal Bureau