NV Subash, grandson of 9th Prime Minister of India, PV Narasimha Rao criticized AICC secretary G Chinna Reddy for blaming the former Prime Minister for failures and downfall of the Congress. Previously, Reddy said that Rao allowed the demolition of Babri Masjid saying, “this is one of the reasons why the Gandhi family subsequently marginalised him.”Reddy also said that Rao tried to ‘sideline’ Nehru Gandhi family to which Subhash hit back stating that this is “not true and condemnable” and that “Rao was the most trusted and loyal leader for Gandhi family and always guided the family on many issues,” he added.
Subhash also sought an official apology from Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi for not giving due credit to the former Prime Minister who steered India an economic crisis in the nineties and ushered economic liberalisation in India. “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,” said the late statesman’s grandson, Subhash. Subhash is now a member and spokesperson of BJP in Telangana.
In a speech to mark the 125th anniversary of the INC in 2009, the party president Sonia Gandhi, praised contributions of all Prime Ministers from the Congress except those of PV Narasimha Rao. All his contributions were ascribed to either Rajiv Gandhi or Manmohan Singh.
When he died, there were no arrangements made to receive the body and place it atop a platform for public darshan. No flowers were provided by the Congress government. There was no shamiana and there were no carpets. There was no one to control the mourning crowds. The congress president appeared for a couple of minutes and vanished. To top that, the former Prime Minister’s mortal remains were not even allowed in the AICC office in the capital, New Delhi.
“It is very clear and evident that his dead body was not even allowed to enter the headquarters of AICC in Delhi. All the former PM’s memorial was built in New Delhi except that of Rao’s which shows the indifferent attitude of the Congress leaders,” Subhash told PTI.
And thus died, PV Narasimha Rao, a genius politician, a true statesman and the architect of modern India, only to be the most underrated Prime Minister of India.
PV Narasimha Rao was the first and only right wing Prime Minister from the Congress clan. A nationalist to the core, he was born in the Hyderabad state of British India. Not many know that this astute politician and economist par excellence was also a trained Guerrilla fighter. He had ambushed the Nizam’s army along with his accomplices, many-a-times. His political prowess and planning genius was identified and nurtured under the guidance of Indira Gandhi. PV Narasimha Rao was fluent in 17 languages, was well versed with subjects related to economics, law, history, politics and arts. In political circles, Rao was fondly addressed as the scholar amongst the politicians.
PV Narasimha Rao changed the name of the Congress Party from Indian National Congress (Indira) to Bhartiya Rashtriya Congress (Indian National Congress) and rejected the candidature of Sonia Gandhi as the Congress President with hard-hitting words as recorded in late INC leader Arjun Singh’s biography- “Suddenly, he burst out in anger and virtually yelled out words to the effect that whether it was essential that the Congress Party should be treated like a train where the compartments have to be attached to an engine belonging to the Nehru-Gandhi family or were there other alternatives? I was dumbfounded by Rao’s outburst but kept quiet,”.
It is a shame that the current Indian generation has forgotten the dynamic leader that was PV Narasimha Rao and his contributions. The Congress’ top brass made every possible effort to make sure that this man goes down in History as a nobody. An apology from the Congress would be the least it could do to redeem for the injustices it subjected PV Narasimha Rao’s legacy to.