New Delhi, July 02: As Prime Minister, PV Narasimha Rao facilitated economic reforms and a talent that rose, against the run of play and expectation, to assume high office himself. Without Rao, there would probably have been no Manmohan Singh, the reformer-politician.
But even having a protégé as Prime Minister isn’t guarantee Rao will get a memorial in Delhi.
The late Prime Minister’s grandson, NV Subhash, has been trying to knock on high capital doors for the past four days now to secure a memorial — or even a street — in his ancestor’s name; he hasn’t even got anywhere close.
June 28 was Rao’s 89th birth anniversary and Subhash, director of a Hyderabad-based hospital, thought there would be a sentimental takeaway for him. He boarded a flight back home today, bereft of any promise but still high on hope.
After all, Rao did break convention by pulling in economist Singh as finance minister who would steer economic reforms; his family believes a memorial is the least he can be granted, especially now that Singh is Prime Minister.
Contacted, Subhash declined any comment but Rao family sources said he was “completely dejected” that he had not even been able to meet the Prime Minister to present his plea.
“He didn’t even get an appointment. The government seemed reluctant to give him an audience. With the release of the Liberhan report and media reports suggesting that Rao’s role has been criticised, there appears little chance that any plea from the family is going to be entertained now,” a family source said, even suggesting that Subhash’s requests had been “stonewalled” by the PMO over the last few days.
The source claimed that Subhash had got an appointment at the PMO for Tuesday which later got cancelled.
This morning, they said, Subhash lobbied Andhra leader and urban development minister S. Jaipal Reddy for access to the PMO but in vain.
Subhash also met tourism minister Kumari Selja, who was the youngest minister in the Rao government and some other ministers of his cabinet to gather support for his cause.
This isn’t the first time that members of the Rao family have been cold-shouldered by the Congress. Just after his death in 2005, the family wanted to convert 9 Motilal Nehru Marg, the house where Rao spent his last years and wrote his memoirs, into a memorial. The request was turned down by the urban development ministry.
Teen Murti House, where Jawaharlal Nehru used to stay, was converted into a memorial, and after the assassination of Indira Gandhi, her residence-cum-office complex – comprising the 1 Safdarjang Road and 1 Akbar Road bungalows -- was also converted into a memorial. Rajiv Gandhi’s last-occupied residence in Delhi is 10 Janpath, the country’s power-address and home to Sonia Gandhi.
Rao, the only late Prime Minister outside the Nehru-Gandhi family to serve as Prime Minister for a full term, has no such memorial in his name in the capital.
But disappointed as he may have been, Subhash took an optimistic view of his mission. Asked if he had given up on meeting the Prime Minister with his request, he said just before leaving for Hyderabad: “It’s not a good time, the PM is busy with the release of the Liberhan commission’s report; maybe that’s the reason why he couldn’t give me an appointment.”
He promised to return and resume his quest, and he hopes to get to the one door that he thinks will answer -- Manmohan Singh’s.
