The Congress cut a sorry figure on the birth anniversary of PV Narasimha Rao as the party was seen lagging behind the ruling BJP in paying homage to the former Prime Minister.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is presently in Japan, was the first senior political leader to pay respect to Narasimha Rao.
“Remembering Shri PV Narasimha Rao Ji on his birth anniversary. A great scholar and veteran administrator, he led the nation at a crucial juncture of our history. He will be remembered for taking pioneering steps that contributed to national progress,” the Prime Minister tweeted.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh also paid tribute to the former Prime Minister in a tweet. “My tributes to India’s former Prime Minister, PV Narasimha Rao Garu on his birth anniversary. He steadfastly worked for bolstering the economy when it was in doldrums. His contribution will always be remembered,” Singh tweeted around 7 am.
As the Congress’ snub to Narasimha Rao triggered a controversy, Congress was forced to tweet from its twitter handle hours after the BJP paid homage.
“We honour P. V. Narasimha Rao on his birth anniversary. He was a visionary leader who oversaw major economic transformations of the Indian economy and dismantling of the License Raj. His contributions to the nation shall always be etched in our memory,” the Congress tweeted six hours after Modi’s tweet.
However, Senior Congress leader including party president Rahul Gandhi did not pay homage to the departed leader.
Narasimha Rao’s grandson today demanded an apology from Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi for ignoring the former prime minister. Narasimha Rao’s grandson, NV Subhash said that Congress leaders did not pay respects to the former prime minister on his birth anniversary today.
Lashing out at the Congress, Subhash told ANI, “After the Congress’s 1996 debacle, he (Mr Rao) was sidelined due to many issues, which were not concerned with his government policies. The Congress party thought that if anyone apart from Gandhi-Nehru family continues then they themselves will not be noticed and so he was sidelined,”
“All failures of the Congress party have been attributed to PV Narasimha Rao and his contributions have not been credited to him. I demand that Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi should apologise, and come and pay their tributes to him,” he added.
Subash alleged that even on his grandfather’s 98th birth anniversary, the Telangana Congress leaders did not pay their obeisance to the former prime minister. “None of the Congress leaders from Telangana have come and paid floral tributes to him. Everyone, including BJP, TRS and TDP came and paid their respects but not Congress. This shows how autocratic they are,” Mr Subhash said.
“His contributions to Congress and the nation has been appreciated by everyone all over the world. When Narasimha Rao took over in 1991 after Rajiv Gandhi”s death, he contributed with the help of Manmohan Singh as finance minister. It (Our country) was in doldrums. His contributions is immense which cannot be measured,” he said.
Subhash praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for mentioning Narasimha Rao’s name in the Lok Sabha. “While addressing in the Lok Sabha, Prime Minister Narendra Modi praised Narasimha Rao because of his contributions made in the country and due to the economic policy implemented in 1991. With that economic policy, following governments did not deviate from it and now we see fruits of that economic policy,” he said.
Prime Minister Modi had said in the parliament that the Congress never recognised the efforts of former prime ministers like Narasimha Rao, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh. “Did those in power from 2004 to 2014 ever talk about the good work of Atal ji? Did they ever speak about the good work of Narasimha Rao ji? In this Lok Sabha debate, the same people did not even speak of Manmohan Singh ji,” he said while replying to the motion of thanks to the President’s address in Lok Sabha.
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