Constitution preamble on hotel door; Twitterati sees CAA link

A well-known hotel has pasted a text from Preamble to the Constitution on its glass door near the reception area, prompting some social media users to link it with the Citizenship Amendment Act.

However, the hotel on Monday clarified that its act of posting text from preamble on its door has got nothing to do with the new citizenship law and said it was put up three-four months back, before CAA came into existence. While entering the reception area of 'The House of Mangaldas Girdhardas' or 'The House of MG', a heritage hotel located in Lal Darwaja area of old Ahmedabad city, one can read an excerpt from the preamble on its glass door.

READ: Lawyers Read Constitution Preamble Outside HC; Call CAA "constitutionally Wrong"

The text prominently reads 'The Constitution of India' on the top, followed by the famed preamble saying 'We the people of India...' pasted all over the glass door in a subtle yet stylish manner. The hotel also houses a restaurant named 'Agashiye', which literally means 'on the terrace'.

A Twitter user named Sukhada on Sunday shared a photo of hotel's door, saying "One of my favorite places to eat at Ahmedabad has this on their front door. Lots of love, Agashiye and House of MG". Though the person did not link it with CAA protests, some other Twitter users enquired if the text was there earlier. One user said: "CAA has made us respect the Preamble more."

On the last count, Sukhada's tweet generated 101 re-tweets and 588 likes. The palatial property in the heart of the city is managed by hotelier Abhay Mangaldas. According to the hotel management, the design on its door was conceived well before the Citizenship Amendment Act was passed in Parliament last month.

"Since the glass door near the reception was transparent, visitors were getting injured as they could notsee it. Thus, our sir (Abhay) decided to paste something on the glass to make it visible," the hotel's social media manager Moumita Ghosh said.

"Around six months back, he came up with the idea of pasting Preamble to the Constitution on the door," she said. Ghosh said Abhay Mangaldas came up with the idea as he had seen a similar design on a door somewhere else. "The designing of the door took some time. The new glass door with the preamble was finally put up three to four months back, well before CAA came into existence. This design on the door has nothing to do with CAA," she added.

The redesigned door caught the attention of social media users after some of them felt the preamble was put up by the hotel management as a mark of protest against CAA. Abhay Mangaldas could not be contacted for comments. 'Agashiye' is the same restaurant where Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosted a dinner for his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe in 2017.

Last year, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi also relished Gujarati food there with local party leaders. Notably, at some places people protesting against CAA have been reading out the preamble to voice their opposition against the new citizenship law.

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