NewDelhi: Former President Pranab Mukherjee will be given a memorial site at Delhi’s Rashtriya Smriti Sthal even as the controversy over a memorial for former Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh simmers.
The daughter of the late President, Sharmistha Mukherjee, announced on social media that she had met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to express gratitude for the decision. ‘It is a deeply touching gesture that the PM has suddenly made that is both very unexpected but also very gracious,’ she wrote, saying her family hadn’t sought the tribute.
The announcement follows a continuing wrangle between the Congress government and the administration over what will be the cremation site and memorial for Dr. Manmohan Singh, who died on December 26, 2024.
The government had come in for criticism from Congress leaders for not providing a properly dignified location to cremate and remember Dr. Singh, who they described as a “deliberate insult” to India’s first Sikh Prime Minister.
BJP spokesperson C.R. Kesavan, however, hit back, saying, ‘Congress didn’t build any memorial in its 10 years of rule after 2004 to former PM P.V. Narasimha Rao.’ Prime Minister Modi, he said, was instrumental in having a memorial made for Rao in 2015 and bestowing the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian award, posthumously upon him in 2024.
The controversy has also put the debate on the issue of political legacy and respect for former leaders back into the centre stage.
The Congress faced criticism last year from Sharmistha Mukherjee for not holding a condolence meeting of the Congress Working Committee in the wake of her father’s death, challenging the party’s claims about protocol for Presidents who die.
But as the debate rages on, the Home Ministry said a suitable memorial site for Dr. Manmohan Singh would be decided soon, and the government was in touch with his family.