The government has not given the status of 'national flower' to any flower, Union Minister of State for Home Nityananda Rai said in Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.
He said the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) has notified 'Tiger' and 'Peacock' as the 'national animal' and 'national bird' respectively, through notifications issued in 2011.
"However, no such notification has been issued regarding 'national flower' by MoEF&CC," he said in a written reply to a question. The response came to a query under the Right to Information Act (RTI) by the Botanical Survey of India (BSI).
Lucknow-based RTI activist Aishwarya Parashar had submitted the query. Aishwarya had asked if Lotus had been declared as the national flower of India.