New Delhi: A political row broke out Friday over the Centre’s decision to conduct the last rites of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at Delhi’s Nigambodh Ghat, even as Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking a dedicated resting place for the departed leader.
On Friday, Kharge called Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, requesting them to hold Singh’s last rites at a place that would, eventually, be turned into a memorial for him. He also wrote to the PM during the day, formally conveying the Congress party’s request.
“Apropos our telephonic conversation, today morning, wherein I made a request to hold Dr Manmohan Singh’s last rites, which will take place tomorrow, i.e., 28 December 2024, at his final resting place that would be a sacrosanct venue for memorial of the great son of India. This is in keeping with such tradition of having memorials of statesmen and former Prime Ministers at the very place of their funerals,” Kharge wrote.
The Congress made Kharge’s letter public hours after the Ministry of Home Affairs wrote to the Ministry of Defence, asking it to arrange for Singh’s last rites at the Nigambodh Ghat cremation ground at 11.45 am on 28 December.
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The Congress announced that the mortal remains of Manmohan Singh will be brought to the All India Congress Committee (AICC) headquarters at 8 am Saturday and taken to the “cremation ground” at 9.30 am, letting party workers pay homage.
According to sources in the Congress, the party has conveyed its demand to the Union government, which has, so far, not responded.
Later in the night, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh posted that Kharge had written to the PM suggesting that the cremation take place at a location where a memorial could be built to honour Singh’s legacy.
“The people of our country are simply unable to understand why the Government of India could not find a location for his cremation and memorial that is befitting of his global stature, record of outstanding achievements, and exemplary service to the nation for decades. This is nothing but a deliberate insult to the first Sikh Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh,” he posted on ‘X’.
Speaking on the matter, Shiromani Akali Dal leader Sukhbir Singh Badal posted on ‘X’, “Shocking and unbelievable! It is condemnable in the extreme that Union Govt has declined the request of Dr Manmohan Singh Ji’s family for performing the funeral and last rites of the highly distinguished leader at a place where an appropriate and historic memorial may be built to commemorate his unparalleled services to the nation. This place should be Raj Ghat. This will be in keeping with the settled practice and tradition followed in the past.”
The Congress demand is significant not only because of its stand against creating separate memorials for VVIPs while in the government but also due to the opprobrium it continues to attract for downplaying the legacy of its leaders outside the Nehru-Gandhi family fold.
On Friday, the Congress Working Committee (CWC), the highest decision-making body of the party, met in Delhi and passed a resolution mourning the death of Singh, “whose life and work have profoundly shaped the destiny of India. Dr. Singh was a towering figure in India’s political and economic landscape, whose contributions transformed the country and earned him respect worldwide”.
The body of former prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao was not allowed inside the 24 Akbar Road Congress headquarters in New Delhi after he died in 2004, and the cortège was parked outside the premises for people to pay their respects.
In books authored by them, Congress veterans, such as Natwar Singh and K.V. Thomas, attributed the bitterness between Rao and Sonia Gandhi to her unhappiness over the slow pace of the probe into the 1991 assassination of her husband and former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.
Sanjaya Baru, formerly the media advisor to Manmohan Singh, wrote in his book, ‘The Accidental Prime Minister’, that the children of P.V. Narasimha Rao wanted the former PM to be cremated in Delhi like other Congress PMs, who have had memorials built for them, but “Sonia did not want a memorial for Rao anywhere in Delhi”.
The Modi government built a memorial for Rao later in 2015.
The banks of Yamuna in Delhi are dotted with several memorials, occupying over 250 acre of prime land. Apart from leaders of the Independence movement, there are memorials for Lal Bahadur Shastri, Jagjivan Ram, Giani Zail Singh, Devi Lal as well as Indira, Rajiv and Sanjay Gandhi.
In 2013, however, the Union Cabinet, led by Manmohan Singh, decided to have a common complex—Rashtriya Smriti Sthal at Raj Ghat—for memorials of departed national leaders, such as Presidents, Vice Presidents and Prime Ministers, instead of having separate resting places.
In 2015, the Modi government also reiterated a decision taken by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Cabinet in 2000 on imposing a ban on turning government bungalows into memorials.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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