‘Low cost Politics’: Minister On Congress Cost On Manmohan Singh Cremation

Hitting again on the Congress over its allegations of mismanagement on the state funeral of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri mentioned this was not the time to attain “low-cost political photographs”.

Congress leaders, led by Chief of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi, have accused the BJP of insulting the previous Prime Minister by organising the cremation ceremony at Delhi’s Nigambodh Ghat.

In an interview with NDTV, Union Minister Puri mentioned Mr Gandhi was making an attempt to “combine info with fiction”. He mentioned the day after Dr Singh’s demise, Prime Minister Narendra Modi referred to as a cupboard assembly and it was determined that the previous Prime Minister could be given a state funeral of the very best order. He mentioned the Union Dwelling Ministry additionally agreed to Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge’s request for a memorial for Dr Singh. “There’s a facility referred to as Ekta Sthal which a last resting place for 4 former Presidents and three former Prime Ministers. These are former Presidents Giani Zail Singh, Shankar Dayal Sharma, KR Narayanan and R Venkatraman, and former Prime Ministers Chandra Shekhar, IK Gujral and PV Narasimha Rao. This facility has place for 9, seven are occupied. However the request that got here from Congress clearly urged they needed extra, and that request was accepted,” he mentioned.

Mr Puri then focused the Congress over its therapy of Prime Minister Rao, credited with Dr Singh for India’s historic financial reforms in 1991. “Mr Rao died on December 23, 2004, and the Congress celebration, which is speaking about insult, didn’t enable the physique to be taken to the AICC headquarters. Congress celebration has all the time considered the celebration by way of the dynamics of the ruling household. So Narasimha Rao’s cremation occurred in Hyderabad. It was solely after Modi ji grew to become Prime Minister that a spot was supplied (for his memorial),” he mentioned.

Mr Puri mentioned nobody from the Gandhi household was current when Dr Singh’s ashes have been taken for immersion at present. “I seemed laborious into that image, even Congress celebration office-bearers, I didn’t see any of them. What are we discussing right here?”

Congress sources have mentioned Dr Singh’s household needed the immersion of ashes to be a strictly private affair and that is why high leaders stayed away. Countering this, Mr Puri mentioned, “We don’t make a problem of it, however even when the household needs it to be purely private affair, he’s a departed Prime Minister. While you see photos of late Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s funeral procession, Prime Minister (Modi) walked all the route, Dwelling Minister Amit Shah did, Piyush (Goyal) walked. The entire concern comes right down to how a lot the celebration needs to do. If the household doesn’t need it, the celebration cannot make a problem out of this. They’re all the time trying to level a finger at one thing that was not achieved, every thing was achieved.”