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Congress demands separate memorial site in Delhi for Dr Manmohan Singh, whose govt had created common memorial site Rashtriya Smriti Sthal

Congress party is seeking a site on the banks of Yamuna River for the memorial of Dr Singh, while the party had denied such a respect for Narasimha Rao

The funeral of former PM Manmohan Singh, who passed away on Thursday evening in Delhi, will take place on Saturday. The last rites will be performed with full state honours. However, the place for the cremation has not been disclosed yet.

Amid this, the Congress party has demanded a separate place for the funeral ceremony, which could be converted into a memorial later. The party is seeking a site on the banks of the Yamuna River for the memorial, in the line of existing memorials for former Congress prime ministers and MK Gandhi.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on 27 December wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting the memorial site. He wrote, “I am writing this in the context of the sad demise of Dr. Manmohan Singh, former Prime Minister of India. Apropos our telephonic conversation today morning, wherein I made a request to hold Dr. Manmohan Singh’s last rites, which will take place tomorrow i.e. 28th December 2024, at his final resting place that would be a sacrosanct venue for memorial of the great son of India. This is in keeping with such tradition of having memorials of statesmen and former Prime Ministers at the very place of their funerals.”

Kharge added in the letter, “In view of the foregoing, I hope and trust that befitting the stature of Dr. Manmohan Singh, the above request to have the funeral of Dr. Manmohan Singh at a place where his memorial can be built, will be acceded.”

Additionally, party leaders Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and K C Venugopal also made the request to Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday.

The union government is yet to take a decision and revert to the Congress party in the matter.

Notably, the Congress party’s demand for a separate memorial for Dr Manmohan Singh marks a departure from the party-led UPA government’s decision to reject demands for separate memorials for former PMs in Delhi.

In 2000, the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government decided not to create separate memorials for different leaders, as the existing memorials in the Raj Ghat area were occupying more than 245 acres of prime land in Delhi. Then in 2013, the Manmohan Singh-led UPA-II govt decided to set up a common memorial ground at Raj Ghat, titled the Rashtriya Smriti Sthal, for the last rites of such VVIPs. The last rites of former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee were also conducted at the Rashtriya Smriti Sthal on the banks of the Yamuna River in 2018.

Rashtriya Smriti Sthal is located between Jawaharlal Nehru’s memorial ‘Shanti Van’ and Lal Bahadur Shastri’s memorial ‘Vijay Ghat’. ‘Shakti Sthal’ and ‘Veer Bhumi’, memorials of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, are located next to ‘Shanti Van’, after which ‘Raj Ghat’ is located.

It is expected that the funeral of Dr Manmohan Singh will also take place in the same area. However, it is to be seen whether it takes place in Rashtriya Smriti Sthal or if a separate plot is allocated. Earlier some reports claimed that it will take place near Shakti Sthal.

Notably, while the Congress party is demanding a separate memorial for Dr Singh, the party never showed such respect for former PM PV Narasimha Rao. The Congress party and its govt in 2004 even denied him a funeral in Delhi, and Rao was cremated in Hyderabad, where a memorial was built. In 2015, the Narendra Modi govt accorded the former PM a memorial at Ekta Sthal, former president Giani Zail Singh’s memorial which has been integrated into Rashtriya Smriti Sthal.

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OpIndia Staff
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