New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi Thursday refused to be drawn into the political mudslinging surrounding the renaming of Delhi’s Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) to the Prime Minister’s Museum and Library (PMML).
“Nehruji ki pehchaan unke karam hai, unka naam nahin,” Gandhi said, asserting that his great grandfather and India’s first Prime Minister was known for his work and not just his name.
The museum, situated in the capital’s Teen Murti Bhavan complex, was officially renamed on 14 August, according to the museum’s executive council, which posted on X: “Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) is now Prime Ministers Museum and Library (PMML) Society w.e.f August 14, 2023 — in tune with the democratisation and diversification of the remit of the society…”
A special meeting of the NMML Society in mid-June had resolved to change the name, which prompted sharp reactions from the Congress since the complex was the official residence of Jawaharlal Nehru.
The meeting was presided over by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, also the vice president of the Society.
Singh had “welcomed the proposal for change in name”, since in its new form, the institution exhibits the contributions of all prime ministers from Jawaharlal Nehru to Narendra Modi and their responses to various challenges faced by them, the Society said.
On Wednesday, the Congress alleged Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s single-point agenda was to “deny and defame” the Nehruvian legacy.
In a post on X, Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh said, “From today, an iconic institution gets a new name. The world renowned Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) becomes PMML — Prime Ministers’ Memorial Museum and Library.
“Mr Modi possesses a huge bundle of fears, complexes and insecurities, especially when it comes to our first and longest serving Prime Minister. He has had a single point agenda of denying, distorting, defaming and destroying Nehru and the Nehruvian legacy… He has erased N and put P instead. That P is really for pettiness and peeve.”
Ramesh added Modi could never take away Nehru’s gigantic contributions in the freedom movement and his towering achievements in building the democratic, secular, scientific and liberal foundations of the Indian nation-state — “all of which are now under assault by Mr Modi and his drum beaters”.
The BJP hit back, with former Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad saying the Congress was centred around promoting the Nehru-Gandhi family while Modi has ensured that all prime ministers are given a respectful place. He said the Congress’s criticism was nothing but “a lament of courtiers”.
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