Sharmistha Mukherjee, the daughter of late former President Pranab Mukherjee, has criticized Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge’s proposal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which called for a separate memorial for former Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh. Dr. Singh passed away on Thursday night at the age of 92 after battling age-related health issues at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi.
In her statement on social media, Sharmistha Mukherjee recalled the lack of support she received from the Congress leadership when her father passed away in August 2020. She alleged that the Congress failed to even hold a condolence meeting through the Congress Working Committee (CWC) following his death. She further claimed that a senior Congress leader had misled her at the time, stating that such actions were not customary for Indian Presidents.
Mukherjee dismissed the argument from the Congress leader as “utter rubbish” and pointed out that when former President KR Narayanan passed away, a CWC meeting was convened, and a condolence message was drafted by none other than Pranab Mukherjee, as noted in her father’s diaries.
She also referred to a post by BJP leader CR Kesavan, who highlighted how Congress had overlooked significant statesmen, particularly those not from the Gandhi family. Mukherjee also brought attention to an issue discussed in the book The Accidental Prime Minister by Dr. Sanjaya Baru, Dr. Singh’s media advisor, which touched on the Congress-led UPA government’s failure to build a memorial for former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao, who died in 2004. According to Baru, the Congress never built a memorial for Rao, despite being in power for a decade after his death, and there were attempts to have his cremation take place in his native Hyderabad rather than in Delhi.
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