New Delhi: The Congress party Friday attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for changing the name of the Nehru Memorial Museum & Library (NMML) to the Prime Ministers Museum and Library Society.
The decision to rename was taken Thursday in a ‘special’ meeting of the NMML Society at a session presided over by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, who is also the vice-president of the 29-member society, according to The Indian Express.
“What won’t Mr. Modi do to distort, disparage and destroy the name & legacy of the architect of the Indian nation-state (sic),” Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh tweeted. “A small, small man overburdened by his insecurities is the self-styled Vishwaguru.”
Pettiness & Vengeance, thy name is Modi. For over 59 years Nehru Memorial Museum & Library (NMML) has been a global intellectual lamdmark and treasure house of books & archives. It will henceforth be called Prime Ministers Museum & Society. What won't Mr. Modi do to distort,…
— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) June 16, 2023
Housed in the Teen Murti campus, the NMML was the official residence of India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru for 16 years until his death on 27 May, 1964. The government then set up the NMML Society on 1 April 1966 to manage the institution. PM Modi had inaugurated the Pradhanmantri Sangrahalaya built on the campus on 14 April, 2022.
At a press conference at the party headquarters, Congress spokesperson Gourav Vallabh invoked the words of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to attack the BJP leadership.
“By changing the Nehru memorial’s name, one person has shown how little he is. I would like to remind them of their own leader’s words — ‘Chote mann se koi bada nahi ban sakta (With small thoughts, no-one can become great)’,” Vallabh said, invoking the former prime minister. “A person who wants to remove other’s names and forward his own, Indian culture doesn’t consider them great.”
“Nehru Memorial library was a hub for think tanks. People used it for strengthening democracy and the constitution. People then passed it onto the next generation. Pandit ji’s name has been written in the hearts of 140 crore Indians, how will you remove that? By doing these small deeds, you are only allowing Pandit ji’s name to grow,” he said.
After enumerating the contributions and achievements of Nehru, the Congress spokesperson attacked the BJP for trying to remove names of all former prime ministers from the “walls” of the country.
“You can remove the name from the walls because you are in the majority. But in the hearts of 140 crore Indians, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, P.V. Narasimha Rao, Manmohan Singh and also Atal Bihari Vajpayee ji, their names are written.”
“We take his (Vajpayee’s) name also because you want to remove his name as well. When you say nothing happened prior to 2014, for 7-7.5 years it was Vajpayee’s government. But we don’t disrespect any prime minister like this. Every prime minister has some contribution,” he asserted.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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