Congress Didn’t Convene A Working Committee Meet To Condole Pranab Mukherjee’s Death:Sharmistha Mukherjee

New Delhi:28/12/24: After a war of words between the BJP and the Congress, the Centre agreed to locate space for a memorial of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. But amid such developments, Sharmistha Mukherjee, daughter of former President Pranab Mukherjee and a former Congress member, has raked up a controversy. She took to social media and criticised the Congress for demanding a separate memorial space for former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh while failing to convene a Working Committee meeting to condole her father, Pranab Mukherjee’s death.

In a social media post, she revealed that a senior Congress leader had dismissed the idea of holding such a meet. She said the Congress leader had claimed that such meetings were not customary for former Presidents.

“When baba passed away, Congress didn’t even bother to call a CWC for a condolence meeting. A senior leader told me it’s not done for Presidents. That’s utter rubbish,” Sharmistha Mukherjee wrote, adding “…I learned later from baba’s diaries that on KR Narayanan’s death, CWC was called & condolence msg was drafted by baba only.”

C.R.Kesavan

@crkesavan

It is indeed ironic that a Congress President is writing to PM@narendramodiji about traditions & the funeral place becoming the sacrosanct venue for a memorial. One should remind Kharge ji how the Congress led UPA Govt never built a memorial in Delhi for former PM Narasimha Rao ji, who passed away in 2004.

 The Congress never built a memorial for him in the 10 years they were in power from 2004-2014. It was only PM Modi ji in 2015 who instituted a memorial for Narasimha Rao ji and honoured him posthumously in 2024 with the Bharat Ratna. Media advisor to Manmohan ji, Sanjaya Baru claimed in his book that the Congress did not want Rao’s cremation to take place in Delhi, but rather in Hyderabad, and that he had been approached to convey this to Rao’s children. The cremation did take place in Hyderabad, with Rao’s body not even laid in state at the All India Congress Committee’s headquarters. The historical sins of the unprincipled Congress will never be forgotten nor forgiven by our nation.

She, however, said that former PM Manmohan Singh deserves a separate memorial space.

“Having said that, a memorial for Dr Singh is a great idea. He deserves it and also Bharat Ratna, which baba, as President, wanted to confer on him; but that didn’t happen, perhaps due to two reasons which don’t need to be spelt out,” she wrote.

Earlier, the Congress’s request for the cremation to be held at a separate memorial site was initially denied by the Centre. Congress leader Jairam Ramesh had called it a “deliberate insult to India’s first Sikh Prime Minister”. Reacting to such an allegation, BJP leaders pointed out the Congress’s failure to build a memorial for former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao.