Congress netas’ capacity for petty politics dismaying

The politics are going astray and with grand old parties losing vi-sion and moving in a directionless manner, it is time their leaders consider winding up the parties which are over 100 years old since most of the parties including national party like Congress in India have become family-run parties where no demographic changes take place.

This is resulting in the parties which perhaps have outlived their utility in trying to rake up unbecoming and unnecessary contro-versies even over the statesman of unparalleled dignity and intel-lect who deserved much better respect, both in life and in death, from the Congress party.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge in a letter to Prime Minis-ter Narendra Modi emphasised the need for performing the last rites of former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh at the place where his memorial will be developed in line with past traditions. What a joke! What traditions are the Congress citing? Where are the memorials of Dr B R Ambedkar, first President of India Dr Ra-jendra Prasad, the Iron man of India Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Lal Bahadur Shastri who died while he was the Prime Minister.

Was not the most insulting and demeaning treatment given to P V Narasimha Rao, the man whose vision and guts proved to be a game-changer for the country? Sonia Gandhi-led AICC and the UPA government did not even allow his body to be kept inside the AICC headquarters. In a great hurry overnight, his body was packed off to Hyderabad. Forget about memorial, not even a road has been named after him anywhere. It is only in Hyderabad where an expressway to the airport has been named after him. On the other hand, 600 government schemes and institutions were named after Nehru-Gandhi family members by the Con-gress governments.

Kharge ji, where are the memorials of former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Pranab Mukherjee, and Sitaram Kesri and why were the traditions not honoured by UPA government? Why didn’t the Congress party deem it fit to call a CWC meeting to hold condo-lence meeting after the death of Pranab Mukherjee? The Con-gress came up with an explanation that CWC was not held for Presidents. Well, but they did so when K R Narayan died. What is most interesting is that the condolence resolution was drafted by Pranab Mukherjee. Are these the traditions Kharge and AICC are talking about? Is this ‘Mohabbat ki Dukan’?

The AICC president needs to answer. Signing on a dotted letter and sending it to the government is not statesmanship. If you ask the Congress party or Rahul Gandhi, who had the audacity to tear the decision of the cabinet meeting chaired by Manmohan Singh, he may then say that the UPA government had banned any new memorials.

Well, when the Congress government itself imposed the ban n 2013, how can you criticise the present government which had shown its magnanimity to construct a memorial for Manmohan Singh even before Kharge wrote a letter? The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) issued a statement on December 28 confirming that space would be allocated for a memorial to Manmohan Singh.

The Congress party also should answer whether it is their tradi-tion to rake up unnecessary controversy and keep away from the immersion of ashes of the former PM who was much loyal to the party? Is it right to use former PM as a tool for political leverage? The Sikh community was present, the family members of Manmohan Singh were present, and BJP leaders, too, were there but the Gandhi family and AICC leaders were missing. What tra-ditions are they talking about? Is it not a new low in the Indian politics?