Congress Didn’t Convene A Working Committee Meet To Condole Pranab Mukherjee’s Death: Former Prez’s Daughter

New Delhi: After a war of words between the BJP and the Congress, the Centre agreed to locate space for a memorial of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. But amid such developments, Sharmistha Mukherjee, daughter of former President Pranab Mukherjee and a former Congress member, has raked up a controversy. She took to social media and criticised the Congress for demanding a separate memorial space for former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh while failing to convene a Working Committee meeting to condole her father, Pranab Mukherjee’s death.

In a social media post, she revealed that a senior Congress leader had dismissed the idea of holding such a meet. She said the Congress leader had claimed that such meetings were not customary for former Presidents.

“When baba passed away, Congress didn’t even bother to call a CWC for a condolence meeting. A senior leader told me it’s not done for Presidents. That’s utter rubbish,” Sharmistha Mukherjee wrote, adding “…I learned later from baba’s diaries that on KR Narayanan’s death, CWC was called & condolence msg was drafted by baba only.”

She, however, said that former PM Manmohan Singh deserves a separate memorial space.

“Having said that, a memorial for Dr Singh is a great idea. He deserves it and also Bharat Ratna, which baba, as President, wanted to confer on him; but that didn’t happen, perhaps due to two reasons which don’t need to be spelt out,” she wrote.

Earlier, the Congress’s request for the cremation to be held at a separate memorial site was initially denied by the Centre. Congress leader Jairam Ramesh had called it a “deliberate insult to India’s first Sikh Prime Minister”. Reacting to such an allegation, BJP leaders pointed out the Congress’s failure to build a memorial for former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao.